The pace of digital transformation sparked by the COVID-19 pandemic shows no signs of slowing and if anything is accelerating as businesses struggle to remain relevant in trying times.
“Now more than ever, businesses around the world recognize the value of IT to their company’s strategy and operations. The pace of digital transformation continues to accelerate, making it even more challenging and complex for IT to operate and modernize at the same time,” writes Dell Digital CIO and Chief Digital Officer Jen Felch for Forbes.
With the rapid digital transformation often comes uncertainty amidst a plethora of technology choices.
“If the past two years have proved anything, it is the importance of rapid adaptability in the face of uncertainty. In 2021, CIOs focused on operational agility more than ever before,” Katie Sanders writes for the Enterprise Project. “To prepare for the unexpected and adapt to whatever 2022 holds, companies must further accelerate their digital transformation initiatives and prioritize specific technology trends.
Crystal Ball: Tech Predictions for the Coming Year
As the global pandemic proved, making predictions about anything, let alone technology, in January can be tricky. The opportunities, however, are present and must be seized.
“When I speak with other IT leaders, we see the same opportunities: optimizing IT operations for speed and quality can be what's necessary to run more efficiently and transform,” says Felch.
Sanders spoke with tech leaders and CIOs to come up with 10 tech predictions for 2022:
- AI and Machine Learning-Based Workforce Tools: Another technology emerging for 2022 focuses on how work is different since the pandemic started. Remote work is not going away, and workforce tools based on AI and machine learning will help make collaboration and communication smoother and more efficient.
- Augmented Reality: Unless you were in space in 2021, you could not miss the press on AR and VR with Facebook changing its name to Meta in preparation for taking advantage of how we will work and play in virtual worlds in the future. AR in 2022 will roll out in collaborative spaces such as sales and training.
- Decentralized Databases and Edge Computing: Along with AI and machine learning, edge computing has been a buzzword for several years and it will be in demand in 2022. Companies, updating legacy tech stacks, will rely on decentralized databases and edge computing to lower latency and save on bandwidth.
- Diversity: Tech predictions can be about people as well as software and hardware. In an historic tight labor market, some predict that tech will turn to diversity and inclusion to fill gaps in areas like software engineer shortages.
- Hybrid Cloud: A shift towards hybrid work will force companies to make an investment in hybrid cloud options which will focus on the portability of apps. Hybrid clouds are structured to use two or more environments such as:
o 2 or more public clouds
o 2 or more private clouds
o 1 or more public clouds with 1 or more private clouds
o Virtual environment connected to a least one public or private cloud
- Kubernetes + AI + Machine Learning = Next-Wave Applications: AI and machine learning-based applications running on Kubernetes could be the next big thing in 2022. According to Red Hat, Kubernetes (also called just kube or k8s) is an open-source container orchestration platform that automates many of the manual processes involved in deploying, managing, and scaling containerized applications.
- Multi-Cloud Deployment Choices: So much of software vendor data, and even their entire applications, are now stored in the cloud but this can present a challenge to compliance, especially with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy legislation in Europe which governs how businesses can collect, sue, and store personal data. Organizations will migrate towards multi-cloud deployments vs. locking into a single cloud vendor.
- Open Source Grows: 5G rollout and the expectation of more video delivered at speeds faster than ever will encourage companies to experiment more with open-source software. This open-source software could help digital services take advantage of AI-powered hyper-personalization.
- Tech Skills Trump Degrees: The days of needing a degree from a specific institution are quickly falling by the wayside as online learning has put tech skill development within reach of the masses. The trend is predicted to accelerate in 2022.
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