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There are no two solutions – the past few years have been a bumpy ride for all of us. 2022, in particular, will be one of the most turbulent years in recent memory, raising issues that look set to fundamentally change the landscape of business and society for years, if not decades, to come.
Technology is no exception and faces its own significant challenges—from privacy and accountability concerns, to growing sustainability and regulatory requirements. But overall, it continues to show great promise in a time of lack of certainty and reliability.
Cloud computing and digital communication are the driving forces behind its steady growth in the first place. But with such pressure to innovate, rising costs and limited financial resources, and a growing push for more effective governance, IT leaders’ priority lists show no sign of shrinking in 2023.
So, with that in mind, I’ve put together a list of the top 10 areas I think IT leaders are likely to be attracted to and businesses need to prioritize in 2023:
1. Even by chance, people are more sustainable: The pressure to improve the environmental sustainability of organizations continues to grow. With energy costs skyrocketing, everyone, including consumers and businesses, is looking for ways to reduce costs. For consumers, this could be a hot water bottle, while for businesses, this includes things like running data centers on renewable energy. However, with the upcoming European Union Corporate Sustainability Reporting Directive (CSRD), smart policymakers are prioritizing reducing overall energy consumption and using tools that ensure accuracy and accountability when meeting sustainability goals. Together with our partners, we help our customers reduce energy costs and carbon emissions, and recognize the importance of measuring progress. You can see how we apply the “Green Score” to do this here.
2. Businesses will be defined by how they work: The battle between those advocating “everyone in the office all the time” and flexible working continues. This is exacerbated in our digital world, where employees still wield a great deal of power; making it clear that if they cannot choose their own methods, they will look for new jobs. Regardless of our personal stance, trying to force people to go this way or that will determine an organization’s IT strategy, and thus its future. Business leaders must agree on the next steps, because the progress made on hybrid work cannot be reversed. Now is a critical time, as these decisions will define the company’s reputation.
3. Cloud-first will become obsolete: But cloud intelligence will become fashionable. According to our Multicloud Maturity Index, many clouds have become chaotic and complex, which is slowing them down. The most successful leaders don’t build strategies around cloud, but rather build powerful distributed applications, including edge applications, as these will drive market differentiation. It’s then up to their IT infrastructure and architecture teams to determine which multicloud approach will give them the capabilities they need to build and maintain those applications, customer and employee experiences.
4. AI will be used for better decision making: The use of artificial intelligence to support more informed decision-making will undoubtedly continue to increase. But with increased regulation and governance, and a better understanding of bias in AI, its use will be limited as to when and for what decisions it will be used, and importantly on what data sets. Nobody wants to end up like the major credit bureaus that were dragged to coal a few years ago because their algorithms gave men significantly higher credit scores than women — due to outdated data. However, there is no doubt that hype will continue to grow as AI enters the hands of more and more non-technical people with the release of exciting tools such as ChatGPT.
5. Take small steps to ensure robots and humans can interact safely: In the same vein where technology meets humans, robots have started to come out of factories and are now interacting with humans, with mixed results and plenty of criticism. Food delivery robots are being rolled out across the UK, and Tesla’s full self-driving test program in the US has been nearly 12 months in the making, so it’s time to take a deep breath and take stock. There have been a few crashes, but let’s be honest…how many times have Deliveroo drivers hit someone on their moped? Instead of rushing to turn robots into heroes or villains in 2023, we’ll be evaluating the reams of data we’re collating and applying lessons learned from their initial machine-human interactions to ensure their safe entry into the human realm. We’re still a long way from full robot-human integration, but continued progress will require taking small steps beyond the alarmism that has become synonymous with robotics.
6. Focus on transferable technical skills to keep pace: While “new” technologies, tools, and procedures are constantly entering the market, nothing is “absolutely new.” Adapting skill sets to the speed at which the world changes is next to impossible; universities just haven’t pumped out multi-cloud architects, and security experts won’t automatically understand new threats. Rather than focusing on platform- or technology-specific skills and competencies, there needs to be more focus on skills that are fundamentally transferable between existing and new technologies, and build on the years of experience we’ve already built. If people have the basics and their intentions are right, there will be more skills transfer to support the digital economy.
7. Still looking for that killer “metaverse” app: The Metaverse, or some version of it, has been on everyone’s trending list for the past decade, with big brands promising world-changing virtual reality experiences. Unfortunately, it’s still not implemented, so people are losing faith. From my perspective, the potential for change is definitely there, but we still haven’t found a killer use case that really engages and transforms people and draws them into repeat visits and experiences.
8. Super app dreams shattered: More fragmentation is happening in the market than a shift to super apps. Look at what’s happening with social media like Twitter, and the rise of Instagram and now TikTok. So far, many have focused on the rise of super apps, which is understandable given consumer demand for a smooth and seamless experience. But EMEA is not China, so a European version of WeChat is unlikely to gain a foothold. There’s pretty clear evidence that super apps aren’t going to happen — people want apps that do specific jobs and do them well. So we may see more fragmentation in 2023, if anything.
9. Overcome supply chain issues with commodity hardware: In a world that is changing all the time, waiting more than 6 months for professional equipment is not advisable. Some people have begun to find a solution to this problem by buying more readily available commodity hardware, and then investing in specialized software to deliver what they need quickly and efficiently. This focus on software definition and enablement will continue.
10. Lines between telcos and cloud providers are blurring: Telcos have been building clouds for years, but with the push toward distributed applications, choice and highly flexible environments, we’ll start to see more cloud companies move into network, infrastructure and customer site management. The already blurred line between the two will only get blurrier. A battle is brewing…
About the Author: Joe Baguley is Vice President and Chief Technology Officer for EMEA at VMware.
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