2022 was an interesting year which marked the end of a cycle of where we saw large growth of technology, digital services, and connectivity adoption reshaping consumer's behaviors. Inflation became real at a national and global level, supply chain challenges persisted as an effect lingering form the COVID pandemic. Higher interest rates and tighter fiscal and monetary policies reduced the supply of cheap money. We saw many socioeconomic and political events, including the invasion of Ukraine with many ripple effects like higher energy costs in Europe, major climate events, and in the United States, historical decisions occurring in the US Supreme Court, mid-term congressional elections and very soon the presidential elections campaigns to kick off. All these circumstances were intertwined and manifested ambiguity and uncertainty for many individuals and businesses.
If you're as focused on the?small and medium?business sector as I am, you know this represented some difficulties and challenges. At
微软
we pivoted on the concept of "doing more with less" which means applying technology to amplify what you can do and what an organization can achieve amid today’s constraints (learn more from our CEO
Satya Nadella
here https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/satyanadella_activity-6986102771036954624-JL9_?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop)
?As a business leader, I'm always optimistic of the opportunities the future holds, especially thinking of how innovations in technology can positively impact our Small and Medium Business customers and our ecosystem of partners who serve them. I'm excited to share five top insights I took away from conversations with our customers, partners and trusted analysts I did some research on. My desire is to stimulate positive thoughts based on the trends and ideas as something to consider in 2023 as opportunities for growth, innovation and resilience, …the beginning of a new cycle!?
- Investments and adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI), automation, and machine learning which is expected to help deliver immediate business value as CIOs and business owners who focus on making their organizations more productive and adaptive in uncertain times. We should expect to see AI startups emerging with innovative services and offerings. (For reference, this was a very insightful blog from Microsoft's CTO
Kevin Scott
here https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/josegomezcueto_a-conversation-with-kevin-scott-whats-next-activity-7009286469836029952-9qvJ?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop.?Additionally, the image used in this post was generated using DALL-E tool from Open AI DALL·E (openai.com))
- ?Increased adoption of Public Cloud/Software-as-a-Service (SaaS): As customer migrate more of their environments, and at the same time look to find reductions for spend across their cloud estates. Continuing the digital transformation agenda will be a priority as with the objective of creating leaner, more efficient IT responses to current business needs. This will likely include understanding how to manage a multi cloud strategy, and increase use of blockchain for decentralization of products and services (For reference and more detail, this will be consistent with the findings of my co-authored whitepaper here: https://www.dhirubhai.net/posts/josegomezcueto_smb-talent-digitalfirst-activity-6967566914994806784-_p6w?utm_source=share&utm_medium=member_desktop )
- ?Talent and Skills Development: Talent wars are expected to continue in 2023 as more diverse skills are needed and the hiring market gets more competitive. In a remote work environment business leaders might struggle to find, recruit and retain the right people at the right price point, so they’ll have to get more creative in sourcing tech talent. Many leaders will consider prioritizing in building a skills-based organization via enablement and investment digital adoption and learning tools. (For reference learn more about Microsoft skilling and learning offerings here: learn.microsoft.com)?
- Evolving Secure Work Environments: Our new reality is one where virtual and in person interactions blur and the new norm is parity between them. These interactions will continue to evolve into more immersive employee and customer probably showing us real-world and business case scenarios implementations of the metaverse. We should expect to see consistent and continued growth and adoption of business processes automation via low code apps democratized across employees. We should expect cybersecurity to continue to be top priority for technical and business leaders as the surface area has expended with a distributed work force operating virtually everywhere, relentless phishing, and bad actors attacks targeting businesses and governments. After cost savings, Cybersecurity will be a top focus area for businesses and leaders will likely invest resources in building a culture of cybersecurity literacy and awareness.
- ?Nascent Trends will manifest across many fascinating areas where we will likely see important advancements in this new cycle which include:?Quantum Computing likely delivering on the promise for computers to operate a trillion times faster than processors available today (For reference, Microsoft has made very compelling progress on this space, read more here: Microsoft Quantum overview | Microsoft Azure ); Robotics and Autonomous Systems continuing to evolve and become more human-like with the capacity to work side to side human in logistics and manufacturing scenarios; Environmental and Sustainability technologies as humans try to tackle the climate crisis being more conscious and demanding services and products that are energy efficient and operating in a sustainable way. Venture Capital investments on 'Climate Tech' should reach a new high. (For reference, more information on Microsoft's Sustainability offerings are available here: Microsoft Cloud for Sustainability | Microsoft )
?I'm optimistic and looking forward to what's ahead!?Here are a few of my favorite sources discussing technology and business predictions for 2023 and beyond. Enjoy!?
