In the new world of work, employees can afford to have more choice over their prospective job environment and are seeking firms that support flexible ways of working and a strong focus on work-life balance. Gartner surveyed more than 3,500 employees globally in October 2021, and 65% said the pandemic had made them revaluate the place that work has in their life. Many employers are facing high volumes of staff shortages as the so-called “Great Resignation” shifts to Asia.
Increasingly, businesses are looking to digital replacements and automation to deal with staff shortages. We see this transition happening already in the hospitality sector, where customers can now order drinks through QR codes and smartphones or robots which can cook and serve food. Although the capabilities of these robots are not yet perfect, they are unlikely to disappear as businesses strive towards transforming the customer experience.
Let’s dive into the strategic technology trends which stand out for businesses in 2022.
A transformative approach to stakeholder experience
As a result of hybrid working models, total experience and distributed enterprise strategies will become the norm for businesses in Asia.
The total experience is a strategic technique used to build a better environment for consumers and employees. It consists of four key pillars: customer experience, user experience, employee experience and multi-experience. Each of these disciplines is interlinked to ultimately improve business outcomes.
A distributed enterprise strategy is important for teams who are geographically dispersed as more flexibility is offered to employees, as well as greater autonomy. Distributed enterprise solutions are more cost-effective and provide hiring benefits for companies. Workplace engagement and increased productivity are some of the other advantages.
According to Gartner’s Top Strategic Technology Trends 2022, by 2023, 75% of organizations that exploit distributed enterprise benefits globally will realise revenue growth 25% faster than their competitors.
The shift to hybrid cloud
2021 saw increased adoption of hybrid cloud, with CIOs valuing its flexibility. Furthermore, global research consultancy Omdia found that hybrid cloud will represent 21% of all workloads by 2023, whilst legacy on-premise solutions are expected to be in only 16% of all workloads by 2023. The Future of Cloud in Asia Pacific report by Cisco and Boston Consulting Group (BCG) found that cloud spending is expected to reach US$200 billion in the region by 2024, with investment into the cloud growing at a compound annual growth rate of over 20%.
Virtual machine (VM)-based workloads show a steady decline, with cloud-native environments benefiting from this trend. The move to adopt cloud-native environments is understood to maximise the value of cloud computing, which shows long-term potential for businesses. They lessen the dependency on infrastructure, freeing up resources to focus on developing innovative applications.
To migrate legacy workloads to the cloud requires significant time, skilled resources, and maintenance costs, which is why these monolithic applications have largely remained on-premises. According to global data from Gartner, by 2025 over 95% of new digital workloads will be deployed on cloud-native platforms, up from 30% in 2021.
Cyber-attacks will remain a threat to businesses
Hybrid working models, which combine office and remote working, are here to stay as Telstra’s 2021 whitepaper Navigating Disruption found that 67% of businesses in North Asia say hybrid work will become the norm.
As hybrid work continues to be enabled, the surface for cyber threats has expanded to multiple attack vectors and is growing rapidly. Because of this, it is important to integrate multiple security technologies and secure all assets.
This enables a security approach that extends across the foundation of IT services and reduces the financial impact of security incidents. Artificial Intelligence (AI)-based tools for cyber security can be used to execute this cohesive strategy, as they can quickly analyse and identify many different types of threats.
Telstra’s data shows that 78% of businesses in North Asia have introduced measures to protect against security threats, describing this shift as a direct result of the pandemic. With the fast spread of the Omicron variant forcing employees to work remotely yet again, companies will have to continue to be vigilant and strengthen their cyber security policies and tools in 2022.
Extending SD-WAN to the home
SD-WAN adoption has increased as enterprises look to speed up their transformation initiatives. This is set to continue in 2022. As employees shift from working in offices connected via secure private wide area networks (WANs) to remote access virtual private networks (VPNs), businesses have had to invest in tools that protect information at the edge and support a cloud-first architecture for employees to access both private and public cloud services securely. Some companies are also looking to extend SD-WAN to their home-based workers to ensure better management and protection.
Disruption through AI
Another technology trend that will continue to grow in 2022, is a sophisticated form of AI called GPT-3 which uses deep learning to create code and human-like text.
In 2022, people will be increasingly interacting with AI-based systems that leverage GPT-3 and similar advanced natural language models. A survey by the AI Journal discovered that close to three-quarters of business leaders feel positive about the role that AI will play in the future, as they anticipate it will deliver more efficient business processes and enable the creation of new products and services.
The new technology can also identify new business opportunities, a game-changer for many organisations that are struggling with employee numbers.
Whilst this form of AI may not be available to all businesses in Asia right now, it will continue to develop and become more accessible over the next decade, creating a transformational effect for businesses across all industries. It is therefore important for companies of all shapes and sizes to be proactive and ambitious when it comes to planning for their ICT strategies in the ever-evolving hybrid world.
