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

A New Kind of Resolution: 2023, The Year That Businesses Get Fit

By Andrew Filev, CEO at Wrike

For many serious athletes, deliberate cycles of caloric excess (bulking) and caloric deficit (cutting) are part of the lifestyle. Our macro-economic environment follows a similar trajectory. Businesses must navigate times of surplus cash, leading to profit and inflation growth, contrasted by periods of investment dollar scarcity through rising interest rates. This year will be no exception. And as businesses follow the priorities of their investors, technology must follow the priorities of the business, which means increased pressure on CIOs to maximize productivity and deliver more with fewer resources.

As we head into a possible recession, I foresee a transition in the ways teams work together and with their digital tools, how they prioritize their goals, and how they maintain workflows with less friction and higher efficiency. Leaders need to take a step back to think strategically about where they invest to maximize impact and improve collaboration - because it will be absolutely essential for survival. Ready or not, 2023 is the year that leaders will have to think critically about their organizations fitness. Here are the changes we can anticipate:

The digital tools that got organizations through the pandemic won't get them through a recession.

Wrike predicts that 85% of organizations will make it a top-three priority to consolidate existing solutions and invest in a single source of truth that provides greater visibility and breaks down silos and workflows across business functions.

In light of tightening budgets, companies will need to invest in technologies that are both cost-effective and help improve productivity. According to data by Gartner, worldwide IT spending will total $4.6 trillion in 2023, and we will see an increase of 5.1% from 2022. While overall spending will go up, organizations will make more thoughtful investments in digital tools that are practical, profitable, and will ensure engagement across teams. Different forms of integration, AI, and automation technologies will become key to a more collaborative workforce.

Email is on its way out.

With the right digital tools coming in, applications that hinder workflows will become more apparent and may be slowly phased out, which includes email. As companies begin to implement and depend on work management platforms to communicate and collaborate simultaneously, disparate email threads will become a last resort. The future of work may see email primarily used as a notification service, while digital tools powered by workflow automation, will take its place in the workforce.

App consolidation will free workers up to focus on results-driven work.

Wrike believes that the number of apps used daily will go from 14 to 10 as teams begin to take a hard look at the workplace tools they really need to succeed in a recession.

In order to streamline workflows, any apps that don't play nice in the sandbox should be placed under heavy scrutiny. Budget cuts will be their death knell. This elimination and consolidation of apps is not only good for workflows, it's good for the bottom line - in more ways than one.

With fewer tools, organizations will start to see a reduction in what we call the "Dark Matter of Work''. This dark matter accounts for all of the daily tasks and conversations that slip through the cracks as a product of using too many workplace apps like Slack, email, Google Docs, and more. Although the time and team effort invested in these activities may seem undetectable, the Dark Matter of Work can gradually contribute to a decline in organizational productivity and have a multimillion dollar impact on the bottom line.

As teams adopt a single solution that is laser focused on enabling collaboration and maximizing outcomes, organizations will see the Dark Matter of Work decrease and their bottom line improve. Most important, teams can get away from distracting synchronous solutions and app toggling to really hone in on the work that drives results. That being said, we may start to see the productivity pendulum swing the other way.

 Productivity will start to improve.

As organizations shift gears from disparate communications tools to robust work management solutions that optimize workflow efficiency, we may start to see productivity improve from this year. The Bureau of Labor Statistics found that in 2022, productivity has been on the decline (down 4.1% in the second quarter) - the lowest it's been since World War II. There are a number of macroeconomic circumstances that contribute to this, including the sheer number of workplace apps employees have been using for the past few years, which contribute to the Dark Matter of Work and employee burnout. With fewer distractions and the proper solution in place, it's likely we will see an increase in productivity and efficiency within organizations and teams.

In short, Wrike believes we will see another major step forward for digital transformations in 2023 as companies focus on improving their overall fitness. This includes investing in solutions that bring all work into one place, streamlining workflows, and prioritizing impactful work.

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ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Andrew Filev is the founder and CEO of Wrike, a collaborative work management platform. Under his leadership, the company has been consistently recognized for its excellent product, tremendous growth, and top-rated work environment. Andrew has more than 20 years of experience in the technology sector and his insights on entrepreneurship, productivity, and the future of work have been featured in leading business publications, including Forbes, Entrepreneur, Inc., and The New York Times. He is also an accomplished speaker, having led talks at numerous conferences, including TechCrunch Disrupt, FounderX, the Project Management Institute Global Conference, SaaStr Annual, CeBIT, Google Cloud Next, and Montgomery Summit.