4 Enterprise Technology Trends You Need to Know for 2023

With Gartner reporting that only 35% of board directors have achieved or are on track to achieve digital transformation goals, there is much room for orgs to step up and win with customers.

1. Controlling costs with automation

One of the top themes of Gartner’s 2023 technology trends is optimization. Energy crises, supply chain issues, inflation, and on and on are problems orgs are facing all over the globe. Those huge risks don’t correlate to huge investments in digital transformation, and orgs are slowing down tech investments to help control costs.

But there’s another way to control costs while still driving innovation: automation.

Automation streamlines processes and enables operational excellence. When times are tough, focusing on automation within your digital ecosystem allows continued progress without opening to too much risk.

There’s a tendency in challenging times to shy away from in-depth development projects and rely on the economies of scale that COTS can provide. But if you have to customize even 20% of those COTS solutions, you’re better off building from scratch and owning the core IP. It’s a longer-term play that will stand the test of time.

Regardless, it’s clear that digitalization and automation will continue to play a critical role in the success of organizations in the coming year.

2. Governance will be more critical than ever

According to Gartner, “business technologists make up between 28-55% of the workforce.” Gartner also says that “there are far more employees customizing or building digital solutions outside IT than inside IT.”

Every organization wants to increase its agility and velocity to make decisions that drive value. But that can’t come at the cost of overlooking governance, compliance, and security. No one wants to be in the news because of a significant breach.

With the shift of IT work to the business, governance is crucial for ensuring that the IT function aligns with organizational needs and that resources are used effectively and efficiently. This requires establishing clear roles and responsibilities for decision-making and processes for prioritizing and managing IT projects and investments.

What Gartner calls fusion teams is a good start. Consciously bring a blend of people from multiple backgrounds and skill sets to build solutions collaboratively. Include corporate IT expertise to help advise on security, architecture, and technologies.

The concept is based on the idea that digital transformation requires a holistic approach that considers both technical and business considerations. By bringing together diverse perspectives, fusion teams can more effectively strategize and execute digital transformation priorities.

3. Shifting from project to product

More and more organizations are moving away from being project-focused (it doesn’t matter whether you’re a retailer, an insurer, or anywhere in between) and more into being product-focused technology organizations.

No matter how good your offering is, if the process of getting it is painful, you’re in deep trouble. The riddle to solve today is creating experiences and services that make partners and customers want to do business with you past a single transaction. Customer engagement, creating stickiness: These are the differentiators.

Rather than sticking with a typical project mentality, where teams come together and dissolve as needed, successful organizations will look at their digital solutions as products with life cycles. Those products will run for a long time with continued investment and have a consistent team responsible for them.

Orgs with a strong IP to build around are in a good position. This is another spot where fusion teams can be a huge benefit.

4. Personalized, mobile, seamless customer experience

Even just a short time ago, having a mobile experience sufficed, then having a native mobile experience was enough. Now users want deep personalization, in-the-moment suggestions, the ability to link to payment platforms, and more. The direction is clear.

People are used to working with a Netflix/Amazon/Uber level of personalization and want those experiences everywhere, whether as a customer or an employee.

On top of that, mobile devices and tablets are eclipsing laptop/desktop computers not just in usage but also in performance.

Increased availability of tools like text recognition, chatbots, AI and machine learning are excellent but only solve half the problem. Tools are great, but the second you ask a user to leave one experience to go to another, you’re giving them a reason to look elsewhere.

The key is really who can pull all these things together the best. Seamless, multichannel experiences will win. There’s no magic answer about how to do it, but those that figure out how to harness their experiences will lead the way.

The next step, not the last step

These enterprise technology trends aren’t everything you need to be successful, but they’re a good foundation. And even if you nail all these in 2023? Things will continue to evolve, and you must be ready to respond to the market with agility and decisiveness.

Is there a way to bring a lot of these pieces together? Absolutely. I might be biased, but the Mendix platform is designed to be flexible for present and future needs. Be cloud-native, connect to legacy systems, integrate new tools like AWS, connect business and IT with collaboration and governance, see your entire portfolio: it’s all within reach.

Mendix allows organizations to plan an entire ecosystem and start to see immediate results. As Adrian Lim, Operation Manager at Sunray Construction, puts it:

“With Mendix, I can visualize the entire ERP blueprint at the beginning. I could build a single feature with low-code and see the result within minutes.”

Getting your strategy right is critical regardless of how you choose to proceed. There are a lot of unknowns in the present world, but 2023 will undoubtedly be a fascinating chapter in the evolution of technology. Go and make your mark.