In the world of IT, change is accelerated by external events, and 2022 will be no exception. Businesses are adapting to a new normal, and decisions about technology investment and implementation are being made with both urgency and a sense of opportunity.
During the Covid pandemic over the past two years, some business lessons were extremely difficult. At the same time, new technologies became credible solutions in the face of a very new problem and paved the way for many successes. That has created a willingness to invest in emerging technologies, as long as business leaders can quantify the value they offer.
With businesses looking ahead to the potential challenges in the year ahead, or at the very least, learning from what worked (and what didn’t work) in 2021, there is definitely more disruption in the air. I believe businesses are more likely to embrace new technologies, including the following.
1. Blockchain and Crypto
Blockchain technology and cryptocurrencies have been around for a few years. However, the impact they will have in 2022 is sure to be even more disruptive, which should get the attention of CXOs, and especially CFOs.
Blockchains have proven themselves as a secure way to store information in a distributed database. They are primarily used for cryptocurrency but can be used for other transactions as well. For CFOs, that proves to be a critical consideration, where an organization can leverage a blockchain to build a ledger that offers complete truth as to its entries.
Simply put, blockchains can be used anywhere that an incorruptible digital ledger is needed. CFOs may want to invest in blockchains to store transactions related to supply chains, the movement of products, the flow of projects, or any process that may have a discovery requirement around it. The supply chain challenges of 2021, as well as the importance of tracking goods, will drive enterprises to embrace blockchains for more than just cryptocurrency.
Often associated with blockchains are cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin, Litecoin, and Dogecoin. Although Bitcoin has been around for more than a decade, 2020 and 2021 proved to be the years where cryptocurrency gained major recognition and actually had an impact on the movement of currency. That begs the question, “What will happen with cryptocurrency in 2022?”
For business leaders, cryptocurrency may become somewhat of a standard, or at the very least, an optional way to move currency around. More people are likely to trade cryptocurrency, buy services or products with it, or use it as a tool for investment. For the CFO, that means some decisions will have to be made, such as “Should we accept cryptocurrency as payment?” or “Should we pay suppliers with cryptocurrency?”
However, those questions lead to other questions, especially ones around legislation, taxation, and valuation. Even with those challenges, cryptocurrency is sure to have a major disruptive impact on how businesses deal with currencies
2. Digital Twins
A Digital Twin is a technology archetype that defines the concept of creating a virtual object that mimics a physical object. Digital Twins came into existence in an effort to speed decisions and make more accurate predictions. In 2022, they are going to have a disruptive impact on enterprises, simply because a Digital Twin can offer much more robust and actionable information.
In the past, enterprises may have relied on simulations to determine potential outcomes or predict events. However, simulations cannot take into account real-time data and usually run based upon assumptions. Digital Twins technology creates an exact replica of a physical object, which shares data with that physical object. Digital Twins can be used for R&D, product lifecycles, improving efficiencies, and overall procedure or process improvements.
One area where Digital Twins can have a major impact is in production and supply chain management, which proved to be a major problem for many businesses in 2021. Using Digital Twins to calculate everything from raw material needs to maintaining production systems and even recycling of old products should prove to be of immense value.
3. 5G Communications
5G has become the clarion call of cellular networks, with many of the service providers making claims about vastly improved performance and increased bandwidth. However, implementing 5G technology has been an expensive and time-consuming process for cell service providers. Delays can be attributed to a multitude of factors, ranging from regulatory requirements to the impact of Covid.
That said, 5G may prove to be a transformational technology in 2022, where high-speed internet connectivity becomes increasingly important to support a workforce that may not return to the office, as well as all of the IoT devices being used to track shipments, monitor operations, and so forth.
CFOs will have to consider the implications of 5G, especially when it comes to supporting the primary needs of the business. Enterprises will have to invest in the technology, buy services, and also deploy, secure, and maintain 5G-enabled devices. What’s more, 5G has the potential to replace localized WiFi networks and even satellite internet services.
Machine learning (ML) and artificial intelligence (AI) are becoming vital tools for the enterprise and are expected to have a major impact on business operations in 2022. To data, ML and AI have been used across multiple projects and categories, mostly focusing on gathering and organizing data in such a way to create relevance for decision-makers.
4. Machine Learning and AI
However, recent advancements have democratized both ML and AI, making the technologies much easier to provision and deploy. 2022 will bring a flurry of vendors offering software-as-a-service platforms that can be used to build ML and AI models, all without the need to invest in expensive hardware and hire numerous engineers. The combination of those technologies into an easily understood platform should lead to new processes and the potential for enhanced automation. ML will be able to learn how processes operate, data flows, and what digital signaling is happening across the environment.
5. Low-Code/No-Code Development
Adoption of low-code and no-code solutions is bound to accelerate in 2022 as businesses deal with a myriad of issues, including staffing challenges, cybersecurity challenges, business process changes, and an overall drive towards efficiency. While some pundits see LC/NC development as something that will empower so-called citizen developers, there are other, even more compelling issues that LC/NC addresses.
Businesses are beginning to find that embracing DevOps or Agile development frameworks is an even bigger challenge than expected. For example, creating secure code, meeting compliance needs, finding developers familiar with all of the latest coding languages, and accelerating release cycles are all becoming increasingly difficult for many organizations.
Here, LC/NC tools can bring some relief. For one thing, programmers can focus on business logic, instead of code syntax. Second, dev teams can standardize on a platform, which also self-documents any changes. And finally, dev managers can expect libraries and templates to be inherently more secure. Ultimately, LC/NC tools can help to normalize development while also accelerating release cycles.
LC/NC tools have the potential to bring efficiencies to DevOps that are sorely needed in light of the issues enterprises face today and tomorrow.
6. SASE
Many businesses were still struggling in 2021 to effectively support a distributed and remote workforce, which in turn forced IT departments to look into better connectivity methods. Businesses worldwide discovered that traditional Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) could not meet the demands created by office workers that suddenly became remote workers. Performance and reliability issues reared their ugly heads, while cybersecurity concerns led many organizations to seek alternatives to VPNs and other remote access technologies.
One of those alternatives came in the form of Secure Access Service Edge (SASE), a technology that was built on top of Software-Defined Wide Area Networking and that combined the security stack with the networking stack to create a secure, private WAN, which ran over the public internet. SASE brings numerous benefits to an enterprise, especially one that is distributed in nature and that must support numerous remote users.
For corporate management, SASE offers benefits that are hard to ignore. The technology has the potential to reduce connectivity costs by shifting network traffic from dedicated connections to the public internet. SASE also leverages security technologies, such as Zero Trust Access, which can replace VPNs, and create more secure connections.
SASE also connects remote workers securely to the enterprise data center, or WAN, and further offers high-speed connections into web services. What’s more, SASE providers can help to normalize connectivity costs by offering plans based upon defined use. SASE promises to bring security, scalability, and flexibility to businesses with distributed networking needs and is poised for significant growth in 2022.
7. Post Quantum Encryption
Quantum computing is moving from theory to reality and recent advances may bring the reality of quantum sooner, rather than later. While that may bode well for those looking for the promised speed and capabilities that quantum computing can deliver, there is also a danger that comes with that computational power.
It is theorized that a functioning quantum computer can, in a matter of seconds, break even the most secure levels of encryption in use today. That, in turn, creates an existential threat to the security of all encrypted data today—a threat that should not be taken lightly. Many enterprises have protected proprietary data using common encryption techniques, with the expectation that even the most powerful supercomputers would take hundreds of years to break that encryption. However, a quantum computer can do in a matter of seconds what a supercomputer would take thousands of years to.
With that in mind, business leaders must take stock of corporate data, how it is protected, and potential liability if data were to fall into the wrong hands. With quantum computing on the horizon, 2022 may be the year for planning and additional actions around data protection.
Many organizations and agencies have been behind the push to develop post-quantum encryption—a type of encryption that uses cryptographic algorithms that are thought to be secure from cryptanalytic attacks by a quantum computer. To protect data in a post-quantum world, organizations will need to embrace post-quantum cryptography, or risk that their data can be stolen and then decrypted.
8. Automation
Although automation, especially Robotic Process Automation (RPA), is not new, there is significant potential for RPA and other automation technologies to accelerate in 2022.
In 2020 and 2021, businesses quickly adapted to remote work and distributed workforces. However, there were also changes with workflows and procedures that did not translate well with a distributed workforce. Add to that a widespread talent shortage, and many executives are coming to the realization the nature of work has fundamentally changed.
RPA and other automation technologies can reduce the need for employees to perform basic, repetitive tasks, such as data entry. In this way, automation can drive efficiency while offering relief to understaffed lines of business. But investment in an automation strategy typically requires a push from the top to move ahead and take hold
Defining the New Norm
Emerging technologies drive both innovation and business disruption. Of course, disruption does not have to be negative in an adaptable enterprise. Very often, it represents new opportunities and capabilities that would not have been realized otherwise. As we head into 2022, business and technology leaders must consider how emerging technologies can help them not only adapt to the new norm but define it.
This article appears in the Predictions 2022 Edition of the Acceleration Economy Journal Download the Full Journal Here
