The 8 tech predictions you need to know for 2022

Many people are currently reluctant to make industry predictions, given we continue to live and work in a sea of uncertainty when it comes to Covid-19. But if we reflect on a big year for the workplace – when tech has had to deliver more than ever – before thinking ahead to 2022, there are eight clear areas where change is most needed, believes Vapour’s CEO Tim Mercer…

  1. 2022 won’t just be about CX (the customer experience) – we’ll all be talking about CXXX! Customers are more demanding than ever before and adoption rates for previously untapped technologies are through the roof. As suppliers we therefore need to be putting in triple the amount of effort when it comes to delighting our customer base. Having been somewhat forced to change direction, at pace, over the last 18 months, many businesses are now realising digital transformation isn’t this scary, ‘holy grail’ they once feared. As a result, new technologies are being pushed internally quicker than ever, CIOs and CTOs are being forced to make decisions they probably wouldn’t have made before, and the appetite for change is big! So are organisations’ expectations of providers – and rightly so. Only the best will thrive in 2022.
  2. We’ll see a much larger push into automation and platform services, that – in principle – enable end users to interact seamlessly. Contact Centre as a Service (CCaaS) and Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS) offerings that haven’t ever been truly disruptive, now have the time to shine – if they enhance the all-important customer experience, already mentioned. If they don’t, the client will move to a solution that harnesses the power of next generation technology, without breaking the bank.
  3. SD-WAN and the ability to bring security into the heart of the organisation – from inside the network rather than at the edge – is key for the above to work. Hybrid working is here to stay, therefore we have to make the corporate environment, and every single individual employee, as safe and resilient as possible.
  4. Linked to this, vendors have to work harder to really get under the skin of what technology an organisation genuinely needs, where they’re going as a business, and the challenges and opportunities they may encounter along the way. Now is the time to design, build and deliver powerful – yet operationally simple – technologies that will unleash a whole range of business potential for the organisation.
  5. 5G will be important – not for its bandwidth but for latency at the edge of networks. We’ve seen an obvious push here into sectors such as health and education, however 5G will bring the ability to compute closer to the client if those services are needed, quickly and with little latency.
  6. If you haven’t yet read about Natural Language Processing – and its cooler sibling Natural Language Understanding – expect to see it everywhere in 2022. It will predominantly break through into contact centres to start with, but – back to point 1 – the savvier of other customer-focused organisations will soon explore this technology, I’m sure, as it has the potential to fundamentally change how we interact with our customers.
  7. The ability to bring video directly into the contact centre will also become more commonplace, as CPaaS platforms grow and develop. We’ve already seen this work on a basic level in healthcare, with doctors doing video consultations, for example. However, a much more structured, rounded, service-led video proposition will grow across varying verticals, I believe.
  8. 2022 is surely the time when organisations – certainly at enterprise level – think more about the sustainability of their tech stacks. The environment has never been such a hot topic and I’m encouraged that we are already speaking to customers about how modern cloud technologies can help reduce their carbon footprint.

To discuss your tech needs – with straight-talking conversation and none of the jargon, contact the Vapour team.

Posted By Vapour Comms Team
20/12/2021

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