Finally, we are in 2022!
Technology has been super dynamic over the past few years. And 2022 is no exception.
Since 2020, and as a consequence of the pandemic, consumers increasingly demand personalized experiences, in addition to comfort and to ensure that their favourite brands are committed to the environment, social networks and governance.
A trend seen in Forrester Research’s 2022 forecasts shows that 80% of consumers expect the world to become completely digital and without physical barriers. That’s why they expect companies to pay special attention to creating a successful and sustainable digital customer experience.
Thinking about 2022, and to achieve these expectations, companies are also aware of the next steps on the path to digital transformation and how to accelerate future demands.
The Forrester Research study looked at consumer and business behavior to list the top nine predictions to be observed over the next year:
10% of technology executives will prioritize investments to radically expand creativity and innovation.
This year, 21% of purchasing influencers globally indicated that digital transformation was essential for their companies to cope with the change in the business model.
Next year, that figure will be less than 15%, but that does not mean that the acceleration of technology will slow down, since there is still a need to invest in smart technologies such as automation and forecasting mechanisms that focus on results and not only in financial matters.
Global spending on order management software will reach more than $ 1 billion in 2022 and by 2024 to $ 1.5 billion.
For brands, the best experiences are made through “trade anywhere.” It will be present with a variety of facilities, for all shopping moments. Therefore, companies will invest in the construction of experience architectures, starting with order management, payments and inventory control, which will make immersive experiences for each consumption profile real.
By 2022, 60% of security incidents will involve third parties.
Companies seek to make supply chains more resilient without giving up their competitive advantage. The combination of these two priorities impacts the growth of your third-party ecosystem. However, this can be a security problem.
According to Forrester data, 55% of security professionals reported that their organization had an incident involving their supply chain or third-party vendors in the past 12 months.
To avoid being potential victims of cyberattacks, managers are rethinking strategies and turning to risk assessment to better map the supply chain and have business continuity management.
75% of customer engagement strategies will not meet Return on Investment (ROI) objectives due to inadequate customer information.
Digital engagement will be the norm next year as 70% of marketers will adopt an “always-on” digital engagement strategy by 2022. About 17% of B2B consumers said demonstrated competence during the process of Buying was paramount, far ahead of the relationship with the sales representative (5%) or customer referrals (6%).
In line with that, the marketing budget that has been reduced to 19% this year, will increase to 25% by 2022, however, these efforts will not meet the ROI objectives due to the lack of knowledge of who the buyer is. Marketers must instil the importance of putting the customer at the centre to ensure that personalization goals are met.
By 2022, $ 10 billion of design spending will be transferred to suppliers and services committed to accessibility.
As accessibility becomes mandatory, technology providers and service companies will need to strengthen the consumer experience.
More organizations purchasing technology will commit to accessibility in 2022, due to the growing number of companies creating diversity and inclusion programs (26% did so for the first time in 2021). Companies will need to do the same and make similar commitments if they want a share of the $ 10 billion.
Businesses fail the ‘work from anywhere’ model, and it’s not the virus’ fault.
10% of the companies will commit to a totally remote future and for the remaining 90% the prescription of vaccines will generate complications, but this will not be the cause of most return-to-office failures.
The most affected will be the 60% of companies that will switch to a hybrid model: a third of the first attempts at the “work from anywhere” model will not work.
For managers, the hybrid model would work, but they will go about their day-to-day life as if the employees were totally in the office. A smaller number (30%) of companies insist on a face-to-face model, but their employees do not accept it. Attrition to these companies will rise above industry averages: monthly attrition rates will increase to 2.5% by 2022.
The native cloud is the centre of attention in the corporate cloud.
Native cloud adoption increased between 2020 and 2021: Developers reported an increase in a container (33% to 42%) and serverless (26% to 32%) use in their organization.
By 2022, native cloud adoption will increase by half of the business organizations.
More importantly, companies will reshape their cloud strategies to be cloud-native and big data, AI and IoT technologies will transcend all major technology domains.
Investment in smart infrastructure will increase by 40%.
By 2022, smart infrastructure investments are expected to see remarkable growth driven by unexpected government spending across geographies. IoT and cutting-edge technologies using advanced networks like 5G have shown that they can enable smart and connected roads and trains.
To facilitate recovery from the pandemic, municipal planning will prioritize initiatives to provide citizens with Internet connectivity, improve public health, and manage critical resources such as water and energy through the use of smart meters.
This knowledge will be reused in an IoT-enabled infrastructure that modifies traffic patterns, reduces congestion, or enables autonomous vehicles in ports and airports.
Given all these trends for 2022, it is clear that it is necessary to review the lessons learned from 2020 and 2021 to build a more agile, creative and resilient path.
Technology spending will accelerate and leaders will invest in innovation to reorient their business strategies with the adoption of AI and other emerging technologies.
