2022: The Year Of (Accelerated) Transformation

Last month, VMware officially closed the books on its fiscal year 2022. For me, the start of a new fiscal year is like starting a new grade at school – you bring the lessons you learned with you, applying them to the journey in the year ahead. Even more so this time as I mark my one year anniversary at VMware in April. But ultimately you learn, grow and sometimes you head in a completely new direction.?

Arguably, the last two years have been ones marked by transformation – in the wake of a pandemic, many companies were forced to digitally transform or risk major operational disruption (or worse, closure due to the inability to adapt). So what makes 2022 any different? It’s the realization that we would have gotten here anyway.??Pandemic aside, demand would have eventually forced organizations into modernizing the way they think about and build technology solutions as the public became more aware of the possibilities (we can thank early adopter companies for that). But what COVID-19 changed was the timing: instead of companies getting to this evolution over the next two to three years when it best suited their business operationally, the pandemic forced the transformation to abruptly start, all at once. And now it’s a race to keep up.?

I believe the realization that this massive wave of transformation is in its infancy will spur a further accelerated pace over the next year.??The digital drive we’ve seen over the last two years was ultimately because of customer and talent demand for easier, more accessible and more personalized service. Customers want low friction, and where possible, seamless interactions, informed by the data they know companies have access to – while talent wants access to information and technologies that help them do their jobs more efficiently, no matter whether they’re in an office, at home or on the go. Now that they’ve had experience with the art of possibility, they want more, now (right now in fact!).??To meet this demand, organizations must invest in modernizing applications and access to information more quickly than before.?

With this speed comes challenge. Organizations in the public and private sector alike are reassessing their strategies, looking for ways to balance the need to innovate faster with factors like cost and access to the talent required to build and run these new architectures. More and more, customers are asking VMware (and our partners) to help them not only reimagine but also deploy the strategy that will get them to modern applications in a multi-cloud environment – shelving initial plans that would have taken three to five years to enact in favour of an accelerated approach this year.??

This level of partnership is not new to VMware, but it is notable as we look at 2022. In the wake of rapid transformation, Canadian organizations need technical allies who understand what’s driving this rapid shift and can help them navigate the complexities of deploying this technology, because there’s no time for a restart when the demand from customers and talent is so high. The ability to build off existing skills and trusted relationships while incorporating new capabilities, partners and ways of doing business will be key.?

And that’s why the real key to success in 2022 will be to unlock the ability to operationalize a strategy at scale. That means something different than it did before, because strong demand means the pace at which an organization plans to scale will be faster this year.??Looking at technology as a strategic, whole-organization investment will help organizations harness this power, move quickly and avoid the silos that have traditionally stalled adoption.?

In close, for 2022 I’m ready for another year of accelerated transformation but with a twist – this is more and more about the long game with a focus on scale and ability to adapt to whatever comes next. What about you?