ServiceNow, a provider of digital workflow services in the cloud, has highlighted five major trends that will influence corporate plans in 2023. The complex macroeconomic backdrop in 2023 will drive business transformation for efficiency and return on investment, while growth in emerging technologies will slow, according to ServiceNow, a provider of enterprise cloud platforms and services. ServiceNow has long observed and analysed which technology priorities will drive organisations’ strategic objectives soon.
According to Cathy Mauzaize, ServiceNow’s VP South EMEA and one of the company’s experts on macro trends “2023 will be primarily focused on companies continuing to implement technologies that will enable them to prioritise business agility. This year, we will see that investment in solutions to address emerging ESG challenges will continue to be a business priority, as well as a focus on implementing technologies that will continue to transform the way we work to retain talent and continue on the path of growth.
In addition, the focus on introducing new technologies, such as the metaverse, will continue to grow, to help cultivate and maintain employee engagement in an increasingly challenging and hybrid macro-environment.”
In the face of runaway inflation, investments in smart digital assets will be a huge deflationary force. Technology will become an even more critical business asset as organisations are already shifting the focus of investment towards technology processes and systems that generate results faster. In fact, according to an IDC survey, 95% of senior executives are already implementing a “digital first” strategy in their business model, because it is proven that digital companies’ revenue growth is twice that of traditional companies.
By 2023, ESG will be an essential component of corporate strategy, not just a collection of frameworks, rules, and guidelines that have little to do with an organization’s goals. The experts at ServiceNow claim that businesses that continue to view ESG criteria as being outside of their organisation would consistently run out of resources and struggle to meet the rising demands of clients, employees, and investors.
Amid continued economic turmoil, artificial intelligence (AI) and data analytics will become more prominent in 2023, with businesses looking to invest to streamline processes and automate and increase efficiency levels. In areas such as information and document categorisation, AI and machine learning can turn a simple, routine task into a source of high business value by extracting and automating information flows and processes to deliver value-added information and save employees’ time. In addition, we will increasingly see a “feedback” loop that will promote new investments as companies that have invested in these technologies see a positive return that drives them to innovate further.
Numerous studies reveal that talent competition is still fierce even in uncertain economic times. The importance of possessing the new abilities required by the market will therefore rise for both employees and businesses. Companies will need to spend on training and enhancing the hard and soft skills of their employees as well as raising awareness of the issue. This factor is especially important for keeping Generation Z talent since they have high expectations for their ability to continuously improve their knowledge and abilities to do their jobs and advance their careers.
Starting in 2023, managerial interest in emerging technologies, in particular the metaverse, will increase steadily. While the complex macroeconomic context may slow down the adoption of these new technologies, the future will be increasingly virtual and the metaverse will play a key role in retaining talent in an increasingly hybrid and challenging environment, where immersive and 3D experiences will help foster social connections between workers connected from different locations and reinforce the creation of a more efficient organisational culture. As the metaverse evolves, companies will look for digital platforms that connect metaverses to the real world, so that the two universes, physical and virtual, are not isolated and continuity of data and experiences can be maintained across platforms, systems and worlds.
