Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2023.  Read them in this 15th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Investing in the Cloud, Creating a Sustainable Future, and Addressing the Talent Gap

By Prashant Ketkar, Chief Technology & Product Officer for Alludo

Throughout 2022 we've seen more and more companies adapt to the new way of working-what we call Work3 at Alludo. With this shift, knowledge workers who are distributed and dispersed throughout the world want to be able to choose where, when, and how they do their best work.

At its core, Work3 aims to deliver a rich set of experiences to knowledge workers in small, medium, and large enterprises so they can be at their productive best. It's all about enabling today's hybrid and remote workforce with the ideal digital workspace by giving employees the freedom and flexibility to choose the tools, devices and applications that empower them to work securely. 

And given the current macroeconomic environment, companies around the world should focus on finding ways to operate more efficiently and to identify cost-effective ways to keep their knowledge workers even more productive, which will give them a competitive advantage and it will be key to their success in the new year.

While companies will undoubtably be prudent in their investments and what they prioritize, I expect the adoption of technology to accelerate. Businesses will need to improve their technology, so they remain competitive while also dealing with the exponential increases in costs and constraints associated with issues like sustainability and productivity.

Keeping all of this in mind, here are the key trends that I see for the new year:

True Hybrid Cloud is the Path Forward  

As we move into 2023 and beyond, companies will continue to push on hybrid cloud solutions. And they'll also begin integrating the cloud services and legacy infrastructure teams. However, skill shortages will continue to be a challenge. Employees who have the needed skillset to build serverless and cloud native infrastructures are rare. If employers are lucky enough to find them, they'll have to pay a lot to convince them to leave their company.   

Green Computing for a Sustainable Future 

As the threat of the global energy crisis and recession continue and companies become more mindful of their carbon footprint, more and more enterprises-especially the mid-to higher-end-will significantly accelerate their investment in cloud adoption to securely and efficiently manage both modern and legacy applications. While the cloud is not perfect when it comes to sustainability, it is more eco-friendly than traditional data centers. And with more companies shifting workloads to the cloud, cloud providers will continue to invest in renewable energy sources to enable environmentally friendly cloud-native applications. 

Companies Will Turn to Alternate Choices to Address the Talent Gap  

In the coming 6 months the labor and skills shortage will continue to hamper industries, companies will adapt to augment and automate repeatable and repetitive tasks as well as upskill and upscale existing talent to focus on the higher value tasks in the wake of short supply and highly competitive jobs market. Companies will make long-term investments to educate, build, and nurture talent that is yet to enter the workforce with the purpose of enriching the ecosystem. However some of the talent supply constraints to ease as companies right size their workforce in line with the macro-economic demand conditions.

Conclusion:

With the current macroeconomic headwinds, all companies­­-no matter how big or how small-should be leaning into the right technologies that will help them operate securely and efficiently. Because at the end of the day, it's the companies that provide their employees with the tools and resources they need to be more productive that will have the competitive advantage, which will ultimately keep their customers satisfied.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Prashant Ketkar serves as Chief Technology & Product Officer, leading the company's product and engineering operations that drive the continuous evolution and transformation of Alludo's product portfolio. Alludo is behind the award-winning, globally recognizable brands including Parallels®, Corel®, MindManager®, and WinZip®.