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TECHNOLOGY TRENDS FOR 2022

Technology Trends for 2022

17 January 2022

Happy New Year everyone! My January blog post is always about the year ahead, and here’s what I’m predicting to be the trends for 2022. You’ll notice that I’ve only considered short-term trends this year, because if there’s one thing the pandemic has taught me it’s not to bother looking too far into the future.

Flexible office work

For business, we’ve learnt that we can have office employees working flexibly and trust them to get the job done without the boss watching their every move. Transformative change to the way we work has been possible for a long time, businesses just needed a compelling reason to change from the way things have always been done.

One thing no-one saw coming prior to the pandemic was the massive need for working from home, online meetings and video calls during the lock downs. What a sad and lonely place the world would have been over the past two years without modern telecommunication!

Once the pandemic finally ends – which we’re all hoping and praying will be in 2022 – there will be a surge of excitement and people flocking back towards face-to-face meetings. But I expect that flexible work conditions are here to stay, with most office workers spending part of each week working from home.

Trust in the cloud

A major enabler for flexible office work has been our trust in cloud storage of our data. Most software systems these days are software-as-a-service systems, allowing users to log in via a web browser and use the system to work anywhere, anytime.

The procurement projects I’ve worked on over the past couple of years have all been focused on moving from old systems into cloud-based software. These days there has to be a compelling reason to not use a cloud-based software system, a complete pivot from the old view of having to store data in on-site servers.

Intelligent, automated reporting

Modern business intelligence reporting systems are making it easier to analyse data and present meaningful information to business owners and directors on boards. You’ll be familiar with this if you read my recent blog post, business intelligence in the palm of your hand.

business intelligence in the palm of your hand

I’ve seen Microsoft Power BI used recently to analyse data for Carers SA. This software makes it easy for executive managers to drill into data and create insightful data visualisations. These business intelligence reporting software systems use artificial intelligence algorithms to analyse vast quantities of raw data and provide meaningful information to the business. The days of needing to pay expensive data scientists to create reporting databases and queries are disappearing fast.

The Metaverse – web 3.0

Have you wondered what the ‘metaverse’ is all about? Is it just the latest marketing hype, or is there something deeper going on?

I’ve previously written about blockchain and its potential to revolutionise the online world of business. This time last year I thought the trend towards exploiting the opportunities of blockchain was waning, but work in this sphere has been quietly bubbling away in the background, with marketers now getting involved to sell the concept to the world.

‘Metaverse’ is a marketing buzzword that’s been invented to describe the blockchain driven transformation predicted for the internet. A more technical buzzword for this transformation of the internet and online connectivity is web 3.0. This promises to be a brave new world of entire lives lived out in the virtual world, with people interacting online, owning digital assets and using digital currency such as Bitcoin for both their online and real-world purchases.

So it seems Facebook’s rebranding of its parent company business to ‘Meta’ is more than just a marketing ploy to distract from recent distasteful news about Facebook, it’s an attempt to position the business to take advantage of the opportunities of web 3.0.

Plan your strategy for 2022 and beyond

What will your technology strategy be for 2022 and beyond? Do you need professional advice, but don't know who to trust? Do you feel overwhelmed by the complex and technical world of information technology? With over 30 years’ of experience in the information technology industry, and many years of experience on boards of directors, I am perfectly placed to guide you through what’s best for your business when it comes to strategic planning.

If you’d like to talk further about anything I’ve written about, get in contact with me today, I’m always happy to meet and have a chat over a coffee – in person or online, whatever you’re more comfortable with.