Digital Transformation Trends for 2022

Digtial Transformation.

No longer is it an optional tick-box.

It is right here, front and centre and many businesses have jumped on the roadmap and are navigating the journey towards the shift from analogue to digital across all facets and tech stacks available to them, based on what they see, research and discuss as the best fit for purpose within there organisation and what the objectives are as a business.

There is no 'vanilla' out of the box landscape here. It is a maze of new tech/software options that can be suited and developed to work across multiple sectors, people, cultures, roles and activities that a business sees as 'can run more efficiently than it was before.

CAPEX is moving more OPEX for sure. Agile for change.

In this short article by daniel newman he gives us 10 to look out for over 2022.

I give you my 4 takeaways as digital transformation business-critical in what we see and hear around the clients and prospects we talk to on a daily, with ideas on how to get there.

#1 POST-PANDEMIC FUTURE OF WORK MEGA SHIFT.

Over the course of the last 18 months, many large and small companies have adopted a mix of office and remote working, and some will hybrid this to suit the needs of the employee and the needs of employer-based on outcomes and deliverables.

Organisations now need to focus on this as the new 'future of work' and accept that this will be the way forward for years to come. They are going to need technologies that seamlessly enable collaboration regardless of location. According to reports, only 8% of conference rooms around the globe are equipped to handle video conferencing. Collaborations companies should and are taking note.

We can expect to see software and hardware tools improve meeting equity and enable a level of unmatched collaboration and communication. Unified Comms and visuals are going to allow us to be more agile in how we find each other, speak to each other and see each other moving forward. Microsoft Teams has built an extensible full-stack that engages its entire software and infrastructure ecosystem to bring work into a single pane of glass in most instances. This makes sure you have a FULLY UNIFIED COMMUNICATIONS experience. And no longer are you tied to legacy hardware. OPEX and agile. Full control

#2 Continued Focus on the Power of AI?and Automation

AI will continue to expand as organizations realize the power that AI can hold for solving problems better, faster, and at scale.?The ways of working smart with bots in our lives are getting strong and stronger. Speed, agility, efficiency and collaboration is making this somewhat taboo subject a reality in organisations across the globe.

Think mundane tasks, repetition, process after process that can be done by automation.

Think accuracy, productivity and business critical value.

Think Customer Experience and Success.

You have a case study. You are looking for efficient operations. You want your employees to be more active and speak to customers or do more effective deliverables with their time. Utilizing the power of automation will give you back thousands of personnel hrs and an ROI that can be seen over the project lifecycle. We have run this gauntlet internally to good effect. Intelligent Automation is going to be massive in 2022.

You can also check out more on this short vid

#3 All Eyes on the (Hybrid + Multi) Cloud

The cloud is not a new trend by any means, but in 2022 hybrid cloud will take centre stage, as vendors compete for the perfect mix of public and private clouds as companies take on challenges around computing including security and data access.

As enterprise IT architectures continue to become more ubiquitous, the battle for hybrid leadership will continue to be a focal point of cloud and legacy IT providers alike.

From Managed Print to Email Security to Accounting, with data being created exponentially faster at the edge than in the data centre, accounting for the edge will only further accelerate the migration to hybrid cloud.

We expect to see more investment from all the competing companies in this space to simplify the process of orchestrating workloads and making data accessible and secure for apps across the IT environment.

#4 Peak Everything-as-a-Service

We have all witnessed the impact that the public cloud and SaaS has had on all technology procurement. One-time capital expenditures for software and infrastructure have been increasingly traded for subscription and OpEx based technologies that can be procured on a consumption basis.

"What they want, when they want it" is what we hear now in these digital transformation circles and from what I see, why would you not want it. Pay as you Go models are the best way to keep your business agile, your initial outlay at a minimum and your current tech stack on top of the game, every month, and every need to change, at any time.

Couple SaaS with that of DaaS services and suddenly you are utilizing software and hardware costs across the business in the OPEX model based on the reasons above.

Businesses are operating at a breakneck pace today and companies can’t be caught running out of capacity or resources for anything. That could spell disaster from both a monetary and reputation standpoint. But I think that this shift is for the best as it has enabled faster digital transformation and increased tech adoption. The concern will be containing the app sprawl this might lead to in the workplace, but that should be manageable (likely by an app) and will be a small price to pay for the convenience that the as-a-service model will deliver.?Luckily with added cyber security frameworks in place, you will be ok.

So, buckle up. Stop looking at NFT's, Crypto and the Metaverse. Keep data, efficiency, control, employees and your customers at the front of your mind.

Digital Transformation and the Experience can be fun and is crucial to your business, the business of your customers and prospects and the experience of everyone involved.

Enjoy it.

Ask me anything.

Have a great Tuesday. 10 days to go.

Kev