2021 Round-up and Looking Ahead to 2022
As 2021 comes to a close and we look ahead to 2022 read our latest insight from our in-house business expert Andrew Fox:
We are all aware that the past 2 years have seen businesses accelerate their digital transformation plans and adopt new ways of working due to the exceptional, immediate need and drive that the unprecedented pandemic created. As we close the year we take stock of 2021 and look ahead to what we believe 2022 will hold.
Many businesses started the year considering the impact of the pandemic and how to stay alive and thrive when the market or opportunity arose. At Trust we wanted to consider what would be the focus for technology to support business strategy to support the new habits and behaviors of customers and employees. We saw the year as a year to rethink, retune and regain. Let’s take a moment to reflect on 2021 on how businesses reconsidered their technology strategies:
- Acceleration We saw a continuation of businesses accelerating digital technology plans to meet the new demands and challenges the pandemic and Brexit placed on businesses focusing on security, hybrid working & collaboration and better ways to digitally engage with customers. Some studies suggest that in some sectors there was a minimum of 3 years technological progress in a matter of 6 months.
- Supply Chain Through 2021 we have witnessed the macro-economic challenges of the supply chain, in particular silicon shortages and delays. Controlling stock has been vital for supporting and safeguarding the customer projects and experience. The pressure on supply chains and the rippling impact of the pandemic, has certainly seen the need to gain inventory control in 2021.
- Staff Shortages, Turnover and Increase in Wages 2021 has seen certain sectors struggling with rising wages bills, higher than usual staff turnover and talent in high demand. This has led to adopting flexible working strategies and automating the customer experience. Both trends have had a positive impact by technology to provide staff secure, remote access and the development of digital innovations such as self-checkout to provide enhancements to the customer experience.
- Mobile To coin a phrase from the start of the year ‘Go Mobile or Go Home’ certainly did become a reality. We saw 5 year’s worth of acceleration in 1 year for retail. Other sectors were similar as businesses realised the power of mobile as a gateway to increased growth and management, but also aiding operational efficiencies including reducing costs.
- Need for Agility If the past 2 years have taught us anything it is expect the unexpected. Planning for this is a complete business nightmare, but what we have seen is the consideration of agility central to the buying decision. The right cloud, mobile and digital technology delivers the means to flex and adapt at speed. An element of this is service, having a quality and proactive managed service to support this technology ensures your business maximises the athleticism this technology provides.
- Rebalance and Address Network Foundations after an Intense Period of Acceleration With any acceleration it is vital that businesses ensure that the foundations that underpin the technological advances is built on the right network with the right bandwidth, security and control. Businesses now need more than ever intelligent, secure, scalable managed networks. This not only supports the increase level of demand on bandwidth through drivers such as WiFi 6 & the move from ISDN to VoIP, but the need also to support a variety of working environments, and agility. Getting it right removes the burden from the IT and Operational departments to deliver cost savings and a focus on adding value to the technology ecosystem with more employees and customer centric advancements.
- Application Performance, Visibility, Control, and Monitoring As we have discussed businesses have accelerated their advancements in digital technology. Now it is time to consider performance in regards to bandwidth and WiFi, businesses need to ensure their network is resilient and eliminate any downtime or drag to ensure the successful running of business critical applications such as payments, databases, loyalty and shopping apps. In 2022 businesses need full stack observability across their now hybrid environments to provide the ability to monitor and control all the new applications, devices and touch points into their critical business systems.
- The Undistributed need to Embed Security With the increased threat landscape outside of the corporate walls the rise of security breaches or risks from the likes of ransomware attacks on remote working means secure access and control needs to be embedded in a businesses network design. Businesses need to ensure all people and things connecting to their network have adequate edge security providing end user and endpoint protection, cloud edge and application security. Security Access Service Edge is a must now and into 2022 to provide security for the increase diversity of people and things connecting to the network.
- Using the Power of your Data The acceleration into digital has opened the door to a wealth of data. But what are businesses doing with the data? The challenge is to obtain worthwhile analytics that deliver true meaning back to the business in real time.
- Core to Business Strategy is Sustainability This is a fundamental component of business strategy and 2022 will see businesses looking at how their technology strategy can support this wider goal. This extends outside of the supply chain but into the networks and operational technology to ensure that power consumption and efficiencies are being adopted. With the increasing numbers of business cases supporting the adoption of SMART building and IoT strategies we are working with customers to prove the power of updating the technology stack and adopt better ways of working to help achieve a net zero carbon position.