Technology vision for 2022

What was our premise for 2020? Survival.

What was the directive for all of us in 2021? Get back on track.

What will be our vision for 2022? Sustainable profits and expansion.

The way back toward sustainable profits and expansion starts with technology investments as CIOs are expected to create robust and resilient IT organizations.

A solid digital strategy will let businesses compete, protect their IT assets and maximize profit. And it's in the CIO's to-do list to shape and enhance the IT backbones.

In Gartner's Top Strategic Trends for 2022, the overarching themes are engineering trust, sculpting change and accelerating growth. There is no question that we will all agree with that!

But here comes the hard part - What are CIOs expected to deliver for their companies? Designing and maintaining a robust and scalable IT organization, one that can support the company growth strategy but can quickly respond if business conditions change once again.

In 2022, companies must connect their technology implementation to economic growth and market opportunity.

Here are some of Gartner's top strategic technology trends for 2022:

Automation

The automation strategy seeks to rapidly identify, vet and automate as many processes as possible.The best companies will need to focus on a trio of top priorities: improving the quality of work, speeding up business processes, and enhancing the agility of decision-making.

Generative artificial intelligence

Though businesses have discussed generative AI for years, we haveseen an acceleration in the past 12 months. Generative AI is expected to generate synthetic data to train models in the creative space or identify valuable products.

Almost immediately after an AI model is put in place, its value begins to drift as data inputs, real world conditions and the economic environment change.

Data fabric

Even the most data-rich companies struggle with data security, compliance and governance restrictions, among other factors that are making it difficult to turn data into actionable insights.

Leaders who are able to execute data fabrics — flexible, resilient integrations of data across platforms and business users — can accelerate time to value and cut data management efforts substantially.

Decision intelligence

Leaders stand to gain from data-driven decisions, but many companies still lack structure around decision-making.

Data management will definitely be part of this process. Training employees at all levels in the organization is essential. The EUROPEAN INNOVATION, TECHNOGY AND SCIENCE FOUNDATION INC. (EITSC) is deeply involved in this process. This approach can outpace competitors in terms of new technology implementation. At the same time, it can help companies to respond to change fast.

Cloud-native platforms

Cloud native platforms use the core capabilities of cloud computing to provide scalable and elastic IT-related capabilities 'as a service'. While these platforms are expected to serve as the foundation for nearly all new digital initiatives, we have to keep cybercrime in mind and do everything possible to secure our data.

Privacy-enhancing computation

With consumer awareness of privacy on the rise, companies are wary of the loyalty impacts of data breaches or other privacy-related incidents. Privacy enhancing techniques can protect personal and sensitive information, letting businesses protect confidentiality while sharing, pooling or analyzing data. An integrated approach is needed to secure all enterprise IT assets regardless of location. These are tasks that the Data Protection Officer (DPO) should be successful in to avoid security incidents.

Distributed enterprise

Major technology changes will respond to the ongoing adjustments to operating models, as most companies continue to adjust their hybrid work models.

Total experience

Total experience is the value of combined customer, employee and user experiences and has the potential of improving business outcomes. But companies must break each of these silos, and understand the upside to improving every stakeholder's experience.

Business ethics

As we are all thinking of strategies into the future, looking at disruptive innovation or creative disruption, I would like to remind everybody that building and maintaining an ethical business culture must be part of the 2022 agenda. Business leaders must be aware that being caught in corruption, unfair competition, data breaches, cybercrime etc. will not only lead to heavy fines but will definitely affect the reputation of the company.

Feedback is welcome; please email me at  [email protected]