Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2022. Read them in this 14th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.
The Rise of Automation, Cybercrime and Workplace Disruption
By Sean McDermott, CEO of Windward Consulting Group and RedMonocle
While the past 21 months have been anything but predictable, some clear technology and leadership trends will shape the coming year. Automation will mature to a state of necessity, a new wave of cyberattacks will threaten companies of all sizes and workplace leadership styles and operations will evolve to meet today’s flexible work arrangements.
Here’s what my companies’ leadership and I think 2022 has in store for the tech industry and beyond:
Automation as a business imperative
More industries are automating, but some still rely on manual methods or are at the very beginning of adoption. Organizations slow to embrace automation will collect mountains of data, incur unsustainable data storage costs and have no way to transform their information into value. As a result, these companies risk infrastructure mismanagement and waning service levels that will put them behind the competition.
Competitive IT companies will upgrade their existing technology with artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML). While select companies will build their own in-house automated processes, most automation adoption will be vendor-driven. Consequently, technology vendors must offer AI and ML solutions and enterprise transformation services or risk becoming obsolete.
Cybersecurity and the evolving risk
The frequency and severity of cyberattacks are ratcheting up, making automation necessary for anticipating and preventing security breaches. Organizations must deploy AI in their security environments to continuously monitor complex IT architectures, rapidly process data and synthesize the data’s context. After all, bad actors looking for ways into companies’ systems will also use advanced automation to find an organization’s blind spots.
Mark Williamson, information security expert and RedMonocle Advisory Board member, says businesses and users have an inflated level of trust in their information technology (IT) tools and systems. He believes infiltration of these technologies will become the most significant cybersecurity risk. “To secure commercial tools and products from infiltration, third-party vendors need to implement security controls from the planning stage on, instead of rushing to get tools and products to market,” suggests Williamson. “From a business perspective, organizations should regulate certification and assurance processes and centralize tool buying under C-level or board-level executives that implement risk management and cybersecurity best practices.”
Williamson also points out that the U.S. government has been serious about following National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) guidance and generally been diligent about cyber risk management. The problem is that “the government and many enterprises entrust their information processing to a web of third-party contractors that do not necessarily take cyber risk management very seriously. These third-party vendors are targets for cyber attacks.”
“Organizations will continue to move from on-prem systems to cloud-based services to reduce cyber risk by inheriting cloud service providers’ certified security and privacy controls,” Williamson continues. “But the organizations that process, store and transmit their data in the cloud must continuously assess their risks, understand their adversaries’ tactics and monitor the effectiveness of security and privacy controls.”
Although cloud access brokers have been around for a while, this industry will grow exponentially in the coming years as SaaS platforms are more prevalent in large enterprises but present security challenges. Cloud access broker technology addresses this risk by providing a connection between systems and the cloud and creating necessary access controls to protect critical data.
Disruptions in management and operations
Most leaders – in tech and across industries – have already discovered that rigidity doesn’t work with today’s flexible work arrangements. 2022 will continue to challenge traditional leadership styles and change the way companies recruit, which will have far-reaching impacts on business operations.
Nichole Kelly, vice president of growth for both RedMonocle and Windward Consulting, believes that employees will continue to be in the driver’s seat, forcing leaders to focus on building a unique and rewarding company culture. She adds, “In this new world of work, the best culture wins, and employees will no longer tolerate politicized and bureaucratic workforces or authoritarian leadership styles. The path forward is a collaborative culture that focuses on innovation and improvement.”
Employees, now in well-deserved positions of power, will require agreements over expectations. While expectations rely on one-way communication (I expect you in the office three days a week), agreements rely on cooperation and dialogue (We agree that three in-office days are best for productivity and accountability). Agreements also provide context – for employees and employers – around workplace needs, resulting in greater productivity, better workplace relationships and more positive outcomes.
Kelly takes the evolution of leadership a step further, proposing that an “arm’s length” approach to management won’t suffice in the coming years. She explains that successful leaders will align dispersed workforces by setting agreements around accountability metrics. “Business activities, including meetings, will all be centralized around adding bottom-line value. But insightful leaders will also avoid being so focused on bottom-line metrics that they kill innovation and creativity.”
The work-from-anywhere era will also be the catalyst for authentic diversity beyond the conventional corporate DE&I initiatives. Kelly predicts, “As companies scramble for talent and no longer feel pressure to hire within the U.S., offshore recruiting will skyrocket, and workplace diversity will take on a whole new role.” She foresees companies not only finding talent from all over the world, but also ceasing to edit out cultural differences. This expanded hiring will lead to a new generation of companies that feel more global and less Americanized.
As we barrel towards 2022, business leaders will embrace automation as a competitive advantage and as a defensive tactic against increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks. And traditional leadership styles at every level will transform into collaborative, communicative teams that embrace diversity – from every corner of the globe.
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ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Sean McDermott is founder and CEO of Windward Consulting and RedMonocle. He also acts as lead researcher at Helix Market Research. Sean previously acted as founder and CEO of RealOps Inc., the pioneer in enterprise management run book automation solutions, which was acquired by BMC. Sean’s curiosity for advancing technology began at his first job as a network engineer/architect installing and managing the first private internet for the U.S. Department of Justice. At a time when the internet was just taking off, Sean was at the forefront and has continued to be on the cutting edge of technology with the development of Windward and RedMonocle. He is an advocate for business leadership strategies and shares how other entrepreneurs can align passion and action on his blog, Wheels up World.
