Technological adoption and innovation is happening at a breakneck pace. With the impending economic slowdown, technology adoption seems to be the most effective path for businesses to come out as winners and sustain and scale growth.
However, adopting technology randomly, without strategic alignment and decision making, is unlikely to make an impact. Therefore, it is very important for businesses to leverage technology predictions and insights shared by CIOs who are leading digital native organizations to unlock their true digital potential. Here are the top 5 technology predictions from Vision 2023: Digital Acceleration Insights for Asia Pacific from 545 CIOs and technology decision makers.
#1 Cloud security investments will see a rise
As anticipated by most CXOs, cloud adoption will see a major rise in 2023, because of its potential to augment resilience, agility, flexibility and multiple other benefits it brings along. Our research shows that 73% CXOs believe that cloud computing will be a major technology lever for digital transformation in 2023. In fact, 74% of businesses are also likely to see an increase in cloud investments in the next two years. These two data points together clearly illustrate that cloud computing will define the future of digital transformation for enterprises.
However, security concerns are accompanying this increasing adoption. For 66% CXOs, cybersecurity is a pertinent concern accompanying cloud computing. If you take a holistic view, it becomes evident that cloud security investments will become a core priority for business and digital leaders. To keep pace with cloud adoption, businesses need to commit budgets for cloud security to prevent unauthorized access, and facilitate cyber resilience.
According to a 2022 Cloud Security Report, 27% of organizations have experienced a security incident in their public cloud infrastructure within the last 12 months. Invariably, this requires comprehensive budgets to mitigate the same. In addition to growing investments, businesses should also focus on:
- Identifying cloud concerns that will accompany cloud adoption at scale via IT shadow, audit configurations, etc.
- Implementing multi-factor authentication and investing in cloud automation
- Backing up and encryption of cloud data
#2 Customer experience will influence technology strategy and execution
Leveraging technology for customer experience has been adopted across industries for sometime now, for instance, in the form of chatbots. However, 2023 will see a peak in technology investments for a better customer experience. This will have an impact on both improving customer experience from a bottom line perspective as well as internal process optimization to facilitate better customer experience management. As per our research, 63% IT leaders believe that better customer experience is the top organizational expectation from accelerated transformation. Furthermore, 64% CXOs cite customer experience optimization to be a key business priority for 2023.
From a customer experience lens, technology strategy and execution will pay a major role in:
- Facilitating a shift from traditional to digital platforms for collaboration
- Augmenting seamless and omni-channel client experiences
- Promoting digital interactive documents with segments that customers can customize
Enterprises are utilizing digital platforms for quick, easy and impactful collaboration with customers, such as online chatbots and virtual assistants to mobile apps and social media. More than a third (67%) of businesses have stimulated multiple new (digital) channels to reach out to their customers and provide them with a seamless experience. Thus, the intersection of technology and customer experience will see a major push in 2023, redefining the equilibrium towards greater synergies.
#3 Network security will become the biggest risk management practice
Overall, security will be a major priority for businesses in 2023. As organizations double down on their technology adoption, concerns about security will see a consequent rise. Be it security for the cloud or other aspects of the enterprise, risk management processes will need to step up to facilitate impact. In such a light, network security is being heralded as the top risk management strategy to address threats and vulnerabilities.
90% of businesses in our research have network security as the top most intervention to address security challenges. If you look closely, this focus on network security stems from the perceived nature of threats that businesses anticipate to see in 2023, on ransomware, internal threats and configuration mistakes. 61% CXO believe that people’s side threats have become the key security concern. Furthermore, 53% leaders see ransomware as the biggest threat to IT security. Thus, network security will enable businesses to address these impending security concerns.
Network security protects and keeps the data safe during both internal and external risks during a cyber attack. Consisting of a set of policies, practices and processes, network security ensures that all devices, connections and everything that is accessible within a network is protected from malware, malicious access or unauthorized use. It helps with proactive detection, prevention and monitoring to protect network integrity.
#4 Digital and business leaders must focus on facilitating cross functional collaboration and bridging the skills gap.
The fourth prediction for 2023 for businesses marching towards digitalization, there needs to be a focus on complimenting efforts and investments by realigning their strategic focus to address some of the challenges. According to the Vision 2023 report, 53% CXOs claim that a lack of cross functional collaboration poses the biggest challenge. At the same time, 49% leaders believe inadequate required technical skill-set is another major reason limiting transformation success.
On the one hand, currently, different functions are carrying a myopic picture of what transformation means and its impact, taking the bare minimum onus to facilitate its execution. On the other hand, it is expected that there will be an 85 million person shortage by 2030, which could lead to a collective $8.5 trillion loss, globally.
Thus, businesses need to focus on identifying, hiring and upskilling talent to bridge the skills gap that is currently widening. Simultaneously, they need to facilitate greater collaboration between the talent to enable them to look at the bigger picture and highlight interdependencies to build accountability.
#5 Data and predictive intelligence will guide business competitiveness
The final prediction for 2023 revolves around the importance of data. Invariably, data is being seen as the new oil or fuel to guide not only digital, but the transformation and success for businesses across industries. Data transformation is bringing along specific benefits for businesses that can unlock unparalleled growth. In our research, 60% CXOs see it as a means to enhance decision making due to a centralized data platform. Furthermore, 45% leaders believe data transformation results in improved data governance and regulatory compliance for better competitiveness.
However, raw data on its own cannot lead to better business outcomes. To leverage these benefits, businesses must:
- Centralize data management to ensure better insights
- Focus on investing in data security, integrity and governance to prevent monetary and reputational losses
- Centralize tracing data lineage, managing security and privacy, as well as maintaining data quality check.
- Facilitate integrated and automated data security and privacy framework with practices like encryption, masking, resilience
Overall, businesses will see an increased focus on security, data transformation and adoption of digital technologies to facilitate better customer experience and business outcomes. To sum up, businesses need to adopt a comprehensive and holistic digital strategy, governed by collaboration to achieve high levels of customer experience, while mitigating security challenges and employing effective risk management tactics.
