Delivering Value in 2022
What to Expect in 2022
2021 saw the start of recovery and renewed focus as well as adaption, change and growth. Despite short term cuts and postponed plans, organisations as a whole still increased their technology spend, focusing their attentions on enabling remote working and customer servicing, reducing on-premises costs and enhancing security.
The pandemic continues to be a driver for change with greater focus on technology solutions as organisations have needed to quickly restructure and adapt. 2022 will see increased technology budgets with technology solutions more important than ever.
We can expect the accelerated rate of digitisation and virtualisation to continue. Hardware spend is an area that may be reduced in 2022 but spend on cloud services, security solutions and managed service provision are all expected to shoot up for all size of businesses. Overall, many organisations will be aggressively spending on technology to accelerate their digital business transformation.
Key Technology Trends & Priorities
In recent articles we have looked at some of the top technology trends for 2022 and where organisations and technology leaders should focus their time, attention and budgets.
We’ve looked at the huge growth in data and how more organisations will adopt multi-cloud services from different sources to provide greater flexibility and security. Data is a hugely valuable asset to any organisation. How can you find better ways to consolidate, access, manage, use and secure it?
In our increasingly digitised world with hybrid working patterns and multiple technology solutions and platforms, enhanced and continuous cyber security is a must and another area that organisations should be reviewing, improving and actively managing.
Automation is another key area for businesses in 2022 as is the increasing use and integration of AI and SaaS solutions as part of creating and enabling a secure, connected, hybrid, smart, collaborative and effective work environment.
How ‘smart’ is your organisation? Have you already implemented AI, machine learning and automation as part of your business strategy or is that something you need to assess and investigate this year?
Partnerships & Collaboration
There will also be greater use of and reliance on external expertise and technology solutions in 2022 as more organisations introduce SaaS solutions and also work with managed service providers as yet another way to accelerate digital transformation, improve efficiency and security, automate processes and support business performance and growth through a changeable business environment.
Delivering value & Demonstrating Impact
Something that hasn’t changed is that technology spend must be clearly aligned with business priorities, must clearly deliver business value and demonstrate positive impact and influence on business performance and alignment with business goals. With greater emphasis and importance of digital business transformation and technology solutions, this will be more visible and under greater scrutiny.
Covid has undoubtedly acted as a catalyst for change, accelerating trends already happening, forcing changes in some areas and opening our minds to new ideas and smarter ways of working and collaborating. It’s also demanded greater reflection, focus and action around what’s actually important to organisations and individuals.
Looking Forward
Despite or perhaps because of, a still changeable environment globally, there’s a sense of increasing confidence for 2022. Many organisations came through 2021 in a strong position, having learned some tough and valuable lessons and gained new skills and experience along the way.
There is still ongoing uncertainty, and we can expect further changes and challenges. Organisations need to continue to reimagine how they operate and work and to identify and address their pain points and look at new technologies, solutions, collaborations, partnerships and ways of working as they move forward.
The key technology priorities for 2022 focus around some common themes- the need for composability, sustainability, scalability and agility, the growth of data and need for greater security. There’s also the potential to introduce new technologies and expertise and the ongoing need to support hybrid working patterns and connected, collaborative environments.
The key takeaway is that organisations need to continue to invest in technology solutions, with greater focus and purpose. Digital business transformation and strategic partnering and collaboration is more important than ever.
2022 should be an exciting, possibly challenging time with greater need and opportunity for organisations to be proactive, creative, innovative, flexible, agile and collaborative.