Another new year and a fresh quarter lie ahead. 2022 was the long-awaited return to normal for many. That isn’t to say last year didn’t have its own unique challenges. Many businesses finally got back on track and will be well-positioned to make strategic strides this year.

As businesses big and small caught their bearings after a turbulent few years, we’re all getting back on track and Connectria is proud to play an integral role in your success in those efforts. We’re pleased to kick off the year with our annual look ahead at the themes that will likely be leading and influencing your business decisions.

Another Big Year for Security

Trend: Cybersecurity remains top of mind for many. 2022 saw increasing development in cybersecurity and ransomware concerns. Therefore, it only makes sense that this would be the first and foremost trend that we’ll be watching closely here in 2023.

Concern: The primary concern remains the same year over year – to protect against cyberattacks. HITRUST, the information risk management, standards, and certification body, will release HITRUST CSF version 11 this month to improve mitigations against evolving cyber threats, broaden the coverage of authoritative sources, and streamline the journey to higher levels of assurance. Additionally, the US federal government made a major investment in state and local government cybersecurity support. Keeping businesses prepared and protected is the name of the game yet again.

Opportunity: The current cybersecurity challenges set the stage for ransomware readiness services to flourish. Additionally, there are other methods, processes, and procedures businesses can leverage as cybersecurity failsafes. We also anticipate a rise in security services for next-gen cloud services such as serverless and containers.

Modernization on the Move

Trend: The most significant trend we see ahead is an increase in digital transformation efforts and modernization activities. In 2023, Connectria will continue our leadership around IBM Power Systems, specifically through digital transformation efforts leveraging the public cloud.

Concern: The primary concern with trending digital transformation and modernization efforts is simply getting left behind. Moving a large organization to the cloud can be a significant challenge. Here, having a trusted partner can help make sense of the steps and stages you need to go through.

Opportunity: It takes time to move to the cloud, vacate a data center facility, or fully rewrite workloads to an event-based cloud-native architecture. For these reasons, some find it more advantageous to retain certain environments for a designated time period. This enables your team to migrate or modernize at your own pace. Retaining the environments through a managed services partner like Connectria can resolve challenges and present a variety of opportunities.

For example, Connectria has partnered with AWS to provide the option of retaining existing IBM AIX applications. Connectria enables integration with AWS through a pre-built, low-latency network. The architecture provides a managed service for your IBM AIX environments and low-latency network integration to your AWS environment. This facilitates the use of AWS to build new cloud-native applications using various data integration patterns. Also, this type of architecture can provide a low-risk, incremental approach to application migration and modernization in AWS.

2023 Economic Outlook – Friend or Foe?

Trend: 2022 was a year filled with macroeconomic news, unprecedented inflation levels, and surmounting pressures for businesses to evolve. While we start the year with a rebounding, but still difficult, supply chain and continued inflation challenges, there is hope on the horizon. Inflation is set to fall but remain above the Fed’s desired 2% target, according to J.P. Morgan Chase. While inflation is likely to remain somewhat elevated through the end of 2023, cooling will become more prominent over time with a few forces driving moderation.

Concern: Business leaders came to terms with these market changes throughout 2022. This led many businesses to look at cutting spending and reducing operating costs. Therefore, the primary concern is the need to do more with less while inflation and costs remain high.

Opportunity: While we’re all acutely aware of the current economic climate, technology spending is expected to remain steady in the coming year. According to a survey by IBM, technology buyers have clear directives and plans to invest in infrastructure, secure their entire digital ecosystem, and make their entire business more sustainable and resilient.

People and Talent Challenges Begin to Build

Trend: As a lingering result of the pandemic coupled with shifts in how we work and rising cloud demand, the challenge of both finding and retaining top internal talent will continue.

Concern: According to Gartner, IT executives view the talent shortage as the most significant adoption barrier to 64% of emerging technologies, compared with just 4% in 2020.  A lack of talent availability was cited far more often than other barriers this year, such as implementation cost (29%) or security risk (7%).

Opportunity: As the technical labor market begins to further contract, leveraging managed and professional services will become increasingly essential. Connectria offers remote monitoring services that act as an extension of your IT team to support your workloads and provide the expertise you need. Connectria’s robust expertise can support your new year needs.

From our hybrid solution for IBM on-net with the public cloud to IBM management or modernization, as well as security and compliance support for both public and private cloud environments, we’ve got you covered. Additionally, Connectria cloud professional services can help you realize your cloud vision. Our expert AWS and Azure-certified consulting and engineering services can help you increase IT agility, transform your business, and meet your goals in 2023.

Read our article: What is On-Demand Development and How Can It Help? 

Help in the Year Ahead

No matter what the new year brings, Connectria is here to help. Our experts can help you make the right decisions for your cloud migration or digital transformation projects while keeping your systems safe and secure.

Not sure if we can help with your desired project? Reach out below and ask. We will set up a consultation with one of our experts to see if we have the skills you need to be successful in 2023.

Contact Connectria today!