As businesses prepare for their yearly objectives for 2022, it’s important to understand the ever-changing landscape of technology and how to tackle the opportunities and challenges facing your business. We recently sat down with a few technology experts to discuss what technology trends 2022 will bring to the forefront.
NetGain’s Director of Professional Services, John Adams, Artic Wolf’s Sales Engineer, Jon Halar, and Hewlett Packard Enterprises’ (HPE) Channel Solution Architect, Eric Powers examined four main technology trends of 2022.
The four topics included:
- Supply chain challenges of COVID-19 and other national and international issues
- Trends in the Cloud and how organizations are utilizing cloud-based services to improve their operations in remote and hybrid work environments
- The Great Resignation, re-named The Great Promotion (thanks to Eric Powers for his creativity), and its effects on the workforce and work environment
- Cybersecurity in 2022 and what businesses must consider to limit their risk
Supply Chain Challenges
Issues in the supply chain are more prevalent than ever before with the on-going struggle of the COVID-19 pandemic. This is causing businesses to change the way their manufacturing and operations function to accommodate the on-going issues. They are finding innovative, new ways to prepare for such uncertainty.
HPE’s Channel Solution Architect, Eric Powers discussed how technology-based organizations are aiming to bring their offshore operations back to the United States. He shared:
“What you’re seeing now, in terms of the supply chain, is that a lot of technology organizations are bringing their offshore operations and manufacturing back to the United Sates or at least North America to make it a lot simpler. For example, one of the main concerns we have in our industry is the shortage of semiconductors. The shortage of semiconductor technology is really plaguing us across the board. That reality is because that semiconductor technology is so backed up in terms of supply chain, whether it be in the data center, in your cell phones, etc. which is why we are seeing cell phone prices skyrocket… So what Intel, AMD (Advanced Micro Devices) and others are doing is bringing their manufacturing back to the United States.”
COVID-19 is not the only issue for. Current threats in the geopolitical environment are seriously affecting the supply chain with on-going hostilities between nations that are common technology vendors for the United States. For example, tense relations between China and Taiwan have become a huge issue as the two nations are among the biggest outsources of technology in the world.
These issues in the supply chain are forcing organizations to make huge changes in the way they focus on developing and implementing new generations of technology. Companies are investing more in the next generation of technologies and planning ahead to make sure their products are more readily available to customers to prepare for future supply chain issues.
Trends in the Cloud
As workplaces have become more digital, new improvements in cloud-based services have given organizations the opportunity to enhance their business practices by simplifying various aspects of their processes. A common misconception is that cloud services are not secure, but they do in fact have many security measures in place to ensure that specific employees are able to log in and access certain tools and systems.
New technology trends of 2022 are showing many new benefits of cloud computing. In the past, the exchange of information within a business could take up a lot of time, but the cloud allows users to share documents and files with ease. This ease of access to the cloud permits users to collaborate much simpler and access data from anywhere. In addition, cloud computing is flexible in its scalability and cost which lets organizations adapt quickly by increasing or decreasing storage, usage, etc. whenever needed. It allows for more data mobility for faster setups and disaster recovery plans when data breaches occur.
Even with these new popular trends surrounding the cloud, some businesses are still skeptical on making the switch to digitizing their infrastructure.
NetGain’s Director of Professional Services, John Adams, discussed how the organizations are slowly changing to cloud-based technology.
“We’ve seen great benefits from the cloud in general, but we’re still seeing about 60% to 70% of companies using on-premise infrastructure so it’s going to be a slow move for us to get completely into the cloud.”
The shift to remote or hybrid work environments has accelerated the use and implementation of the cloud and companies are seeing the benefits it gives to their operations. Cloud services give organizations a secure infrastructure that allows them to work and collaborate with ease by allowing them to store, share and backup their data from anywhere. We will continue to see organizations move certain applications to the cloud; however, many organizations will have a hybrid model of on-premise and cloud solutions.
The Great Resignation
It is no surprise that one of the more serious technology trends of 2022 is the ever-present effects of the COVID-19 pandemic and how it has changed the business world as we know it. Many companies now must navigate their practices into an entirely new work environment. The Great Resignation has resulted in an innumerable amount of employment challenges and organizations are still struggling to deal with these issues.
It is easy to assume that the effects of The Great Resignation are all negative, but there are some upsides to it that the team highlighted in our discussion. Artic Wolf’s Sales Engineer, Jon Halar stated:
“This is bringing more opportunities to people. As we just talked about, the cloud allows the ability to spin things up and develop new infrastructure on the fly without having to rely on hardware. The same thing can be said for jobs as well. No longer do you have to be in the same state as the job and you do not have to be in the same building. You can really work from anywhere and bring your talents to the corporation that needs it.”
For a more positive perspective of the circumstances surrounding The Great Resignation, Eric Powers reimagined the term as The Great Promotion to better highlight the exciting opportunities organizations can implement in 2022.
Cyber Security in 2022
With the transition into a more technology-based workforce, cyber security continues to be one of the most significant technology trends of 2022. In recent years, we have seen huge data breaches across multiple large corporations and the lasting effects they have had on the market. For example, in May of 2021 the Colonial Pipeline system suffered a ransomware cyberattack that affected all of their computer equipment used to manage the pipeline. The hackers stole hundreds of gigabytes of data, forcing the pipelines to be shut down resulting in fuel prices skyrocketing to the highest they had been since 2014. Also in 2019, the First American Financial Corp. had a data breach that leaked over 800 million users’ sensitive records. As you can see, cyber-attacks can create an adverse effect on organizations big and small.
HPE’s Eric Powers talks about how hackers infiltrate attack software:
“They have teams dedicated to hacking and causing disruptions around the world and they will infect an environment, let it sit there, make sure they pass all of the security measures and then when you least expect it, they will attack you. A lot of times they will do it strategically where they know they can get the most out of an organization they in attack.”
Cyber-threats scan networks frequently to find vulnerabilities that allow them to access your data while remaining hidden in a system. These vulnerabilities can happen to anyone as hackers do not base their attacks on specific targets, they conduct broad-based scans for under-equipped organizations they can easily infiltrate.
Currently, according to John Adams, there is around a 40% deficit where the U.S. does not have enough skilled members in the workforce to be able to protect data from being hacked. The lack of security management skills, or the lack of priority by business leaders, has majorly affected organizations across the country and has allowed for more cyber-attacks to occur. The future is uncertain, but it is important now more than ever for organizations to prepare for cyber threats and proactively identify and rectify cyber-attacks.
The technology world is continually transforming to meet the needs of our communities and organizations. There are many things your business can do to be setup for success. By understanding some of the technology trends of 2022, you can uncover exciting new opportunities for your organization to improve its current infrastructure and how you operate to prepare for the future opportunities to come.
