2022 is here. Much has changed but so many things stay the same! The world continues to battle threats from the COVID 19 pandemic on one side with vaccines and better medication while slowly accepting the new normal of life on the other.
From retail to education, entertainment, banking, healthcare, and nearly every sector, businesses of all sizes have become accustomed to a very dynamic and responsive operational framework that helps them to overcome frequent disruptions. One of the key elements powering their flexibility is the dynamism and power of the underlying technology backbone.
As we progress deeper into the digital economy, tech innovations are at the forefront of driving new value chains for businesses. Gartner estimates that global IT spending would exceed a staggering USD 4 trillion in 2022.
Digital is today a strategic competence that all businesses seek to incorporate in their operational models. This has become crucial to stay ahead in the race to manage disruptive market conditions and at the same time facilitate new ways of working for employees. It is also necessary to keep the larger business infrastructure from becoming obsolete as conditions change.
So, the question for enterprise leaders is only where to invest their IT budgets.
On this note, let us explore the top enterprise technology trends that need to be on the watchlist for decision-makers in 2022:
Smart Spaces
From homes to offices and commercial avenues, the demand for connected experiences will grow exponentially. Consumers increasingly want to experience interactions with digital environments that are not just restricted to their hand-held devices. From the front desk at a “socially distanced” and “touchless” enterprise to the exhibition space in a furniture store, users will demand more blended digital environments. They will demand intuitive processes, real-time recommendations, and virtual trials to help them make decisions faster or progress in their tasks faster. Add to this, the need to make physical spaces secure and compliant with regulations in the wake of disruptions like the pandemic will be huge. To cope with the demand, businesses would have to model their existing and upcoming physical buildings as intelligent or smart spaces that can be seamlessly blended into digital experiences. This will increase the focus on digitizing traditional processes and automating others.
Hyper-automation
Experimenting with automation is no longer adequate. The ever-growing digital economy of today demands a more concerted and comprehensive approach that goes beyond automation to intelligent automation. Enterprise automation strategies are being forced to evolve and develop. Enterprises need to embark on a roadmap to rapidly identify, validate and automate all or as many business processes and IT workflows as possible. Hyper-automation will become the goal and businesses look to amplify the power of their existing automation initiatives by folding in AI and ML-led transformations to take automation to the next level with even more nuance and cognitive impact. As automation efforts scale up, it will be easier for businesses to onboard new digital applications and experiences since the underlying infrastructure can be configured to rapidly respond to the needs of the markets.
Distributed Enterprise Architecture
Even many forward-thinking organizations were found wanting when it came to implementing digital-first modes of working for their own workforce while they were busy catering to the digital-first needs of the customers. The pandemic was an eye-opener in this regard. The lack of innovation from enterprises in internal operational tools and technologies became apparent as employees had to cope with sudden transitions into remote work models and the IT team had to endure nightmares to facilitate a disruption-free transition. In 2022, enterprises will need to accept the fact that the future will be digital for their workforce as well. If not a fully remote model, they will demand a more digital-friendly and risk-free operational model and enterprises will need to invest in tools and resources to support them for collaboration and disruption-free work operations. Hybrid workplaces, virtual sales and customer engagement initiatives, governance, and compliance regulations for virtual operations will be some of the key drawers of IT budgets in 2022. Communication and collaboration tools will evolve and become more integrated, intelligent, and intuitive. The enterprise will remain distributed and the technologies, tools, and techniques that drive it will become distributed too.
Continuous AI Engineering
In 2022 and onwards, enterprises will have to invest in creating resources and governance models that help their AI systems become mainstream and achieve more autonomous scaling to cope with business demands. AI systems that learn from experience and modify their own algorithms to optimize outcomes will open new areas of innovation in AI engineering with a large potential for business innovation. Other AI innovations like generative AI in which AI systems learn from data to create new original content like video or new and improved computational models for analytical systems hold great promise for 2022.
Privacy Driven Application Development
We have already seen how AI systems and other emerging technologies will play a more important role in reshaping customer experiences for businesses. However, enterprises need to ensure a focus on an underlying framework of ethics. They will have to place a high value on the privacy and security of customer information. This will be necessary to avoid falling foul of legislation like GDPR. Technologies that favor privacy-centric development frameworks for applications will find increased patronage in 2022 from enterprises as they look to deliver amazing experiences that also build trust among their loyal customers.
Enterprise technology will take great strides in innovation and agility in 2022. Businesses must not be confused with their needs and what the market offers. It is important to have a clear and business-driven roadmap for investing and onboarding new technology to avoid risky cost escalations and failed digital transformation efforts. Get in touch with us to know more about leveraging the right technologies for achieving your enterprise’s digital ambitions in 2022.