The adoption of Digital Transformation Trends that turn traditionally structured businesses into agile, modernized businesses has been a major talking point in the last few years. More and more businesses are opting to undergo digital transformation. The onset of Covid-19, while proving to create all kinds of challenges and pressures, has proven to be one of the key drivers behind the uptick in digital transformations over the last 18 months. TechQuarters, a London IT support company and managed service provider, has experienced a boom in customers wanting to digitally transform to support their employees to work from home while the Covid restrictions are in place.
What is Digital Transformation?
While the name sounds like something you would read about in a Sci-Fi novel, digital transformation is a fairly straightforward principle (even if it is not straightforward in practice). It simply refers to the strategic adoption of digital solutions that enable a business to operate in a more mobile and agile way.
Mobility is another way of saying that employees’ user experience remains identical whether they are working in the company’s office, at their own home, in public, or while traveling. It means that a business’ perimeter is not limited to any centralized site – digitally transformed companies may have a headquarters, but the majority, if not all of their technologies, resides in the Cloud.
The agility of a digitally transformed business refers to flexibility and adaptability. An agile business structure enables a company to adapt to changes and pressures, much like what businesses experienced during the onset of Covid-19.
Digital Transformation Trends in 2022
With more and more businesses pushing to transform their organization digitally, it is worth knowing about some of the key trends within the field that we will see in 2022:
1. Artificial intelligence
is becoming integrated into sectors, such as healthcare, cybersecurity, manufacturers, and transportation. An exciting field of AI technology is machine learning, which is the field of processing and analyzing vast, complicated datasets that traditional data processing tools cannot handle. The insights that AI can reveal from this type of data are incredibly valuable to the business, as hard data is important when it comes to business decision-making and planning for the company’s future.
2. Cloud Computing
The Cloud was a highly disruptive technology in the IT world – meaning it has drastically changed the way we look at information and communication technology. The ability to host, access, and process data securely across multiple regions is one of the main reasons digital transformation is possible – it is the key to mobility and agility for a business.
Cloud Computing is constantly evolving. New Digital Transformation Trends such as multi-cloud systems, the Internet of Things, and Edge Computing are just a few of the advancements in the field of Cloud technology that many businesses will be looking to adopt in 2022.
3. Virtualization
The onset of Covid-19 introduced many people worldwide to the concept of virtual offices, virtual meetings, even virtual commutes. With many businesses around the world set to continue working from home in 2022, likely, virtualization will also remain a key aspect of digital transformation. Businesses in 2022 will be looking for ways to emulate the traditional office setting in a virtual environment – with particular concern with building company culture through virtual social interactions, virtual team-building exercises, and more.
4. Containerization
One of the key characteristics of digital transformation is for a business to virtualize its storage arrays and servers and host them in the Cloud. Many cloud computing services enable businesses to host Virtual Machines (VMs) that run various applications that are important to the functioning of a company’s network. New technology is beginning to replace Virtual Machines when it comes to running applications in servers, and it is known as Containerization. The principle of Containerization is to package an application so that it can be run on any platform – usually, an app needs to be redeveloped to work on other platforms, such as Linux, Windows, or Mac. With Containers, developers can adopt a write once, run on all approach to software development, which will make the maintenance of virtual servers much easier.
5. Low- and No-Code Development
The demand for custom applications and software is growing among businesses because the tools needed to write one’s software are becoming more available and affordable. Development is becoming yet more accessible thanks to low and no-code development. This refers to platforms that offer a range of pre-coded components that allow people without much coding experience to build their applications. Rather than writing each line of code from scratch, users learn to use a low-code developer platform and have access to a large database of codes that they can essentially drag and drop to build their software.