With uncertainty rife going into 2021 (and for most part of the year), flexibility and agility were organisational priorities.
As such, the adoption of hybrid work as the de facto operating model, and a significant pivot towards more as-a-service technology investments were two key trends we witnessed across the region.
Based on the learnings of the past year, here are a few trends that I believe will have a significant impact on businesses heading into 2022.
Failure to retain top talent will cripple businesses
As the worst of the pandemic subsides, and life starts returning to normal, businesses may be faced with a new crisis: employee attrition. The technology industry is not immune to the great resignation that hit the US this summer. This is a global trend that may continue well into 2022 as employees voluntarily reassess their workplace options and change their priorities.
To set themselves apart and retain their employees, the industry may see businesses starting to shift travel and expenses (T&E) budgets towards higher salary levels as well as offering flexibility on benefits with an even greater lens on diversity and inclusion.
Currently, the high costs of recruitment and high salaries being thrown around are unsustainable — there needs to be a levelling out, and this will be a key focus for businesses in 2022.
Businesses will increasingly embrace a new ‘invest to grow’ mindset
The pandemic has dramatically changed how business leaders view IT spend. Over the last 18-24 months, businesses witnessed a power struggle between the CEO’s growth perspective and the CFO’s pullback perspective.
With businesses under huge duress, the CFO came to the fore and dominated. However, we’re now at a tipping point with the power shift more finely balanced between the two — and the CEO winning back the conversation.
In 2022 we’ll increasingly see businesses investing in new ways of delivering their products or services, while retaining the overall value of their brand. For example, there will be exponential growth in areas such as as-a-service (aaS), managed services, subscriptions and the cloud, as businesses look to partner with specialists for their ‘IT plumbing’ so all the focus and attention can go towards optimising the brand and their products.
Businesses are shifting their psyche – increasingly wanting hosters and integrators to do everything for them instead of depending on a private cloud run by their own people.
This will keep the CFOs happy because they won’t have the same cost implications as before and the CEOs happy as they’re getting that growth trajectory that they’re looking for.
Brands will increasingly cross the chasm between the old and new world, while trying to get their heads and procurement models around subscription models.
By my reckoning, we might be 30 percent further forward in terms of pre-pandemic but there’s still a lot more legacy thinking and technology to shift. It will happen though, as the stock market continues to hammer any businesses that still buy in a legacy way.
CEOs must become more decisive and IT-literate than they’ve ever been
As a result of the pandemic, CEOs will become more authoritative in their decision making. And this is true across all industries. The risk of making a mistake right now is very damaging for any business, so they’ll need a decisive leader in place to allow them to come out of this period stronger than ever.
To make these decisions effectively, it’s critical for CEOs to have far more depth and breadth of understanding of their company, as well as the data they have and how they can manage it to the extent that data must be considered a balance sheet asset. This requires CEOs to be far more IT-literate than they have ever been.
As a result, we’ll see them leaning on and working more closely with the CTO and chief data officer (CDO) to fully grasp and understand the value of their technology and data. This applies especially to areas such as containers and Kubernetes to ensure businesses can fully embrace automation, mobility, and agility, and be dynamic in the way data moves throughout their business.
Businesses will face dire consequences if they don’t comply with ESG regulations
As a society, we all have a responsibility to do more to use less power and create less of a carbon footprint. This is not just a trend – the planet is dying because we’re doing bad things to it.
The myopic view of business success being based purely on measuring how much money comes in and goes out will become a thing of the past. In 2022, companies must be valued by their commitment to ESG.
As such, we’ll see governments putting restrictions or applying greater tax on companies that don’t comply with certain ESG regulations. ESG will become a balance sheet item where companies must declare the amount of carbon they’re producing and whether they’re offsetting it sufficiently.
Data will be key to this. If companies want to be more efficient, they will need to mine their data to identify patterns and trends, which will inform them of where they’re causing the most damage so they can get to work on fixing it.
The rapid changes society has undergone over the past 18 months, present an opportunity for forward-focused businesses. Companies that focus on their employees, make the right technology investments and prioritise ESG will stand to gain a decisive edge, not just in 2022, but for years to come.
James Petter, general manager, international, Pure Storage
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