Top Tech Trends to Influence Business Recovery in 2022

The year of 2021 came to an end, which means it’s time for us to have a look at all the ups and downs that global business has gone through, thus making essential conclusions to be prepared for 2022. 

2021 has been rough on world businesses, testing their endurance and readiness to deal with the devastating aftereffects of the 2020 world pandemic and forcing everyone to adapt to a new reality. Global crisis, remote work, overwhelming public restrictions, and uncertainty have become the norm of our ordinary way of living. For the last 2 years, we have been trying to crawl out of the hole of despair to get things back on track. And it seems like 2021 was able to give us a light of hope for the upcoming improvement.  

Facing the disruptive consequences of 2020 made us rethink the way our world functions and opt for decisive moves to withstand the times of darkness. Each and every company had to go online to keep afloat, realizing the need for digital acceleration and software elaboration as they became key elements of survival in our new reality. The proliferation of software development made the IT industry a shining star on the world market. Since so many businesses had to go digital-only, the amount of data has increased tremendously, bringing some entrenched tech trends to the forefront and, at the same time, paving the way for new ones. 

Cloud systems have become inalienable in a modern digital world, as they help to store information without any barriers. In order to boost cloud technologies and facilitate the remote work process, many businesses have started to incorporate AI technologies. Another burning trend, which is closely connected to data optimization is the Internet of things (IoT), which helps to empower cloud-based applications and transfer data over the network. With the dissemination of cloud technologies, cybersecurity has faced new challenges since the amount of digital data which should be protected has drastically increased (as well as the number of cyber-attacks). 

Apart from IT trends, 2021 has also brought to life new opportunities for business enlargement. 

IPOs have gone to the next level, as about 2,850 businesses raised more than $600 billion in IPOs in 2021. According to EY, the IT sector has seen the biggest amount of IPOs this year, enabling more and more startups to break through to the global tech arena. Among the most outstanding tech startup IPOs of this year are GlobalFoundries, GitLab, Wise, Confluent, Braze, Informatica, and Amplitude. 

Another booming trend of 2021 is M&A deals which are prevailing in the IT field, reaching an estimated US$888.2bn. In such a way, the tech sector now constitutes 20 percent of the M&A market.

As we can see, 2021 has been pretty generous with possibilities for business regeneration, but what to expect from the upcoming 2022?

The forthcoming year is expected to be promising as the business recovery is already starting to take off. More companies will accelerate the digital transformation, resulting in the following tech trends.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, the whole world shifted to remote work, making huge changes in the way of doing business. Some prudent companies have already started to take action, preparing for remote work to remain as a permanent fixture in the following years. They have been investing resources into the development of anywhere operations – a business model designed to support customers, employees, and services from any part of the world. Anywhere operations are extremely profitable for companies, as they help to reduce costs, improve productivity, access diverse pools of professionals, and enlarge business capabilities. According to Forrester, around 70% of large firms will embrace anywhere-work in 2022.

Cloud technologies have been utilized for quite a long time. During the pandemic, cloud systems have become even more widely used due to the fact that they help to facilitate remote work (which has become the norm). However, it’s predicted that in 2022 ordinary cloud systems will no longer be relevant as businesses elevate their digital capabilities. Therefore, hybrid & multi-cloud computing will become the new trend, which will combine public and private clouds to help companies enhance their productivity. Such tech giants as Microsoft and Amazon see a bright future in this new technology because it’s predicted that the market size of hybrid cloud will grow to $97.64 billion by 2023.

AI Technologies Come in Handy 

AI development has become a real trend in 2021, and it won’t slip backward in the following year. In 2022 the boom for AI technologies will be in inflated demand, as more and more businesses use them for analytical data collection, customer support, and web-page optimization to ameliorate web products. Gartner estimates that the AI software market will reach $62 billion, with global spending on it rising to over $57 billion in 2022.  

Privacy protection has been a burning issue for some time with the increasing number of various websites, platforms, apps, as well as the rapid digitalization processes amplifying the need for enhancing cybersecurity in 2021. The upcoming year will see the need for enhanced information protection as the number of companies going online-only expands. Therefore, new cybersecurity strategies will be devised to beat the sophisticated hacker programs. According to the research by Juniper, the global cybersecurity spend will reach nearly $135 billion in 2022. It is also predicted that more and more companies will embrace AI technologies to create a better protection model in the digital world.  

Overarching WebAssembly Technology in Programming 

The rising need for web development with full-fledged calculations resulted in the elaboration of a new technology – WebAssebly, which will be a ruling trend in 2022. Web assembly will allow developers to utilize any programming language while writing codes. It will substantially increase the speed of web platforms and expand web development technologies. One of the tech giants, Microsoft, has already been investing hugely in its Blazor WebAssembly, as this technology looks extremely promising.  

Internet of Behavior (IoB) is an emerging trend that will become more prominent in 2022. IoB enables companies to track people’s behaviors when using various apps and websites and analyze these data to devise effective marketing strategies. Embracing the knowledge of behavioral science, edge analytics, and the IoT, this new technology will become a real magic wand for companies to remain competitive in the fast-paced global market. Gartner predicts that 40% of the worldwide population will be exposed to at least one IoB program by 2025.

With all this remote work, the offshoring of software development has been gaining considerable momentum, as it helps companies to expand their business capabilities, enter new markets, and get more investment. This booming trend will only intensify in the upcoming year since more and more companies are looking for new sources of business upscaling. According to Forbes, CEE region will become a number 1 destination for IT outsourcing in 2022 - due to its huge pool of gifted coders, convenient location, and low pricing. It’s worth mentioning that R&D outsourcing is gradually suppressing the traditional IT outsourcing / outstaffing as it provides more cost-effective solutions for rapid business enlargement. According to a report by ReportLinker, the R&D outsourcing market is expected to grow by $7.22 bn during 2021-2025, which means that product companies should start considering software R&D outsourcing right now to preserve their competitiveness in the near future. 

So, the year 2021 has changed our perception of doing business, resulting in numerous challenges and at the same time giving hope for some rapid recovery down the road. What’s crystal clear is that the impending year won’t be uneventful but chock full of outstanding tech trends and budding opportunities for businesses to escalate. Thus, bear that in mind if you don’t want to be left in the dust of the global business race.