7 Social Trends That Will Affect The Business Of Software Providers In 2022

Many of the challenges that companies have faced this past year will be amplified as society tries to return to some level of normality in a context marked by changes in behavior that will no longer be turned back.

Thus, many organizations will have doubts about marking the path they should follow. Maintain your current plans for growth and technological implementation? Adopt or abandon certain platforms? Speed ​​up or slow down modernization efforts? Scale up or down current deployments?

Although there is still no clear indication of which technologies will triumph in 2022, decision-makers who participated in three different studies conducted by Zebra confirmed that technology interests and deployment plans are more diverse than ever, primarily because their priorities are diversifying. In addition, in the next twelve months, companies will have to figure out how to respond to these seven social trends:

1. Stabilize supply chains . Everyone, from governments to health care institutions, car dealers, restaurants, or retail stores, will be more willing to try new technologies that help them be more efficient. This will be especially apparent among those competing for safety stock and making more aggressive moves to better control their supply chains.

2. Reduce the scarcity of resources  (human and material). It is expected that the shortage of labor, stock, production, raw materials / natural resources and even operational capacity, will be addressed in a very surgical way and with technology informing the best decisions to be made or serving as a solution.

3. Make up for labor shortages . Although not a new concept, achieving better utilization of labor will become a priority in 2022 out of necessity. This will force a greater reliance on new technologies, which will serve to automate daily planning, decision-making, and task execution to free up workers’ time so that they can focus on solving more strategic problems and customer service.

4. Meet new demands for customer service . The “on-demand” economy now also extends to providers of transportation services, utilities, and emergency services, among others. All of them must find ways to expand their workforce, streamline workflows and improve situational awareness of teams on the ground so they can send the right people to the right places, right time, with the right teams. and necessary tools.

5. Make “sustainability” a reality . Companies are being asked to accept their corporate responsibilities and commit to new practices that enable the reduction of waste and carbon emissions. This will, of course, require greater use of digital technologies, which can aid in decision-making and transparency.

6. Continue to comply with changing regulations . The good news is that most of the technologies used to ensure regulatory compliance will also solve other business problems or introduce new workflows or functional efficiencies.

7. address dispersion. Population centers are moving and expanding at an unprecedented rate. In 2022, we will see a race to build, repair, replace infrastructure and expand services, including healthcare. Construction rates will increases in both the residential and commercial sectors, and highway, utility, and other critical infrastructure projects will accelerate.

A greater effort will also be made to expand the scope of services outside the typical geographical parameters, which will require the digitization of systems and the reinforcement of telecommunications networks, as well as greater investment in IT infrastructures to ensure that both decision-makers such as front-line workers can do their jobs properly.

“If a software provider wants to grow, it will have to focus on providing solutions to all the new challenges that companies and institutions are going to face in 2022. Although we call technology a solution, in reality it is people who solve problems using it. Therefore, it is critical to show them how to get the most out of the various mobility, cloud, automation, artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning and software solutions available to them,” says James Pemberton, Global ISV Director, Alliance & Developer Strategy, Zebra Technologies.