Technology has been evolving at a staggering pace, especially since the pandemic during which we saw thousands of companies transform their businesses and accelerate their digital initiatives. As a result, there’s been an influx of several technologies and business trends at the start of 2022, the year many believe could see our lives return to normal even with new variants keeping up the uncertainty levels.

From a business perspective, many such trends have brought changes in the landscape, forcing businesses to work harder to settle and keep pace with the technological developments without knowing whether they’ll bear any fruit for their company.

In this post, we’ll share the most trending technology and business developments in 2022 so you can understand their potential impact in your industry and determine which trends you need to adapt to ensure continuity or sustain growth.

The Most Trending Technology and Business Developments in 2022

1. Distributed IT Infrastructure

With remote and hybrid work models becoming mainstream, nearly 70% of companies in different industries are rapidly adopting hybrid-cloud or remote platforms to enable data access and operations from anywhere. This business technology trend will also help boost productivity, speed, and agility, reduce expenditure, and adopt asynchronous work models. Industries leading the change movement include healthcare, IT, transport and logistics, telecommunications, and food and agriculture.

This change wouldn’t have been possible without the emergence of faster digital technologies, most notably 5G and IoT. According to McKinsey, these technologies could increase global revenue to $2 trillion by the next decade.

2. Edge Computing

With millions of employees working from remote locations, businesses are looking for solutions that could help them process time-sensitive information in any location with limited or no connectivity. Here, edge computing comes in. It’s a fairly new technology that brings computation and data storage closer to the source, allowing businesses to save time and bandwidth when exchanging data.

Cloud computing has become mainstream, thanks to players like Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure adopting edge. Businesses are rapidly migrating their data to the cloud. Edge computing can help overcome some of the biggest shortcomings of cloud technology by introducing a way to bypass the latency and make data more reliable and accessible to users.

3. The Rise of the Metaverse

The Metaverse was recently introduced by Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg. It’s essentially a digital reality combining social media with augmented/virtual reality and cryptocurrencies to enable a more interactive shopping or social experience in a virtual space. The integrated platform aims to facilitate convenience and consumption by fostering frictionless access to Facebook, Spotify, Snapchat, Zoom, Amazon, Alibaba, Roblox, and ByteDanace, among other services.

As this ecosystem continues to grow, many technology sectors, especially on-demand consumption, VR and AR, gaming, collaborative productivity, and communication technology, will have to keep up and improve their value or complement them according to future trends set by the Metaverse.

4. Cybersecurity and Privacy Domination through Blockchain

The business world has witnessed an exponential rise in Cybersecurity threats since the pandemic’s start. Since then, the world has become even more digital and left businesses even more vulnerable to cyberattacks. With threats becoming increasingly sophisticated, there’s been a massive rise in Cybersecurity and privacy spending in different sectors. Previously, artificial technology was the most talked-about technology in the security market for preventing future attacks and automated monitoring.

Since the beginning of 2021, distributed ledger technologies, such as blockchain, have become quite popular in building a trust architecture that minimizes the risk of data breaches. According to Statista, blockchain technology could grow to more than $23 billion by 2023 due to its numerous applications apart from security. For instance, Walmart is using blockchain to monitor its supply chain actively and bring improvements to its supply chain.

5. A Peak in Life Science Technologies

The life science industry mainly includes biotechnology, neuroscience, pharmaceuticals, and biophysics. Since the pandemic started, major shifts have taken place to cope with rising threats and environmental challenges.

From new vaccines to the integration of AI, robotics, machine learning, and cloud computing into research and development, it’s safe to say that the world has seen more changes in these industries in the last two years than in the last two decades. Plus, with the growing eco-conscious movement, there’s a growing surge in sustainable business technologies and practices, such as paperless offices, solar gadgets, smart lights, and a green supply chain.

6. Increased Urgency in the Renewable Energy Technology Sector

Climate change and global warming awareness has accelerated sustainable energy adoption in the business world. During the pandemic, the energy sector was among the only sectors showing significant growth.

According to the International Energy Agency, the world produced nearly 40% more renewable energy from different sources, such as solar, wind, nuclear, and biofuels. As a result, you can expect massive developments in these industries as green transport, energy-efficient buildings, and green gadgets become mainstream in the business world. More importantly, companies must keep pace with sustainable energy opportunities as they may hold the key to generating more revenue and sustaining long-term growth.

Conclusion

Undoubtedly, 2022 will be a big year for businesses in every industry. With things slowly getting back to normal, there’s plenty of opportunity for startups and small businesses to capitalize on these six technology and business trends. Of course, not all of these trends will suit your businesses, but you could make some game-changing strides in your industry and gain a competitive edge if you play your cards right.

For more information on business technology and practices, visit Percento Technologies today.