Gartner’s Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2022 Put IT in the Spotlight

At the beginning of 2020, companies around the world took what they thought was a temporary measure and sent everyone home to work remotely. Two years later, folks are still working remotely—and an overwhelming majority want to continue doing so for the foreseeable future. 

In response, analyst firms like Gartner have conducted extensive research to understand how executives can position their businesses to succeed in an increasingly remote-first world. Gartner’s most recent report titled Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2022 found that organizations can gain a significant advantage by embracing a “distributed enterprise.”

But what exactly does that mean? And what role can CIOs play in enabling the business in 2022 and beyond? Let’s take a closer look at Gartner’s key technology trends for this year, why a zero-touch IT mindset is at the crux of each of them, and how BetterCloud can help you execute against Gartner’s recommended strategies.

To download a complimentary copy of the full report, click here. 

IT leaders need to enhance the digital workplace to be location-independent

We’ve written extensively about the benefits of a remote-first workplace for employees, but Gartner’s research shows that organizations that embrace remote work gain a significant competitive advantage. By 2023, Gartner predicts that 75% of organizations that pivot to a “distributed enterprise” will realize revenue growth 25% faster than their competitors.

To achieve this competitive benefit, Gartner says that IT leaders need to expand and mature technology that supports remote work and collaboration. The bare minimum for getting started includes:

• New forms of remote and on-premises collaboration
• Secure remote access
• Digital experience management
• Automation of IT operations

This aligns with BetterCloud’s approach to managing and securing a cloud-first environment.

While it’s no secret that SaaS adoption is exploding, we believe that every organization will eventually become a SaaS-Powered Workplace.

As your SaaS portfolio grows, so too will the number of IT tasks that you’ll need to automate—which makes an SMP like BetterCloud critical to the short and long-term success of your entire business.

Optimizing the employee experience for remote workers

At the beginning of the pandemic, IT leaders leapt into action and quickly implemented systems that enabled us to stay productive while working from home. Although their work should be celebrated, Gartner urges executives to maximize operational efficiency and further transform the employee experience for remote workers.

In the image below, you’ll find the solutions that Gartner believes are necessary for what they call a human-centric workplace. Gartner’s analysts broke this chart out into two categories, and we were particularly struck by their recommendations in the “Support” and “Automation of Remote Operations” categories.

These categories stood out to us for two reasons. First, the bullet points in the “Automation of Remote Operations” category validate our belief that SaaS management as a practice has become essential to current and future cloud-first organizations. The inherent security risks, cost management challenges, and efficiency opportunities of SaaS increase exponentially as your cloud portfolio grows—especially in a remote or hybrid environment in which you can’t remedy an issue by walking over to someone’s desk. This is just one of several reasons why so many of our customers tell us that a SaaS management practice and toolset is essential.

Additionally, we recently published a series of blog posts on moving towards a zero-touch IT mindset. Each post addressed a specific integration with BetterCloud that enables IT to handle user requests more efficiently, without any intervention from IT. This was far from a coincidence. 

Our customers repeatedly tell us that it’s critical to create self-service systems that allow employees to get what they need quickly while also enabling IT to focus on more strategic initiatives.

Gartner’s list of the top strategic technology trends for 2022 confirms that BetterCloud customers are ahead of the curve—and that creating a zero-touch environment is essential to maximizing the benefits of a distributed enterprise.

Shifting to business models that integrate digital and physical services

Throughout the report, Gartner uses the term “distributed enterprise” to describe an organization that has customers and staff spread out geographically. As a growing number of workers move to a remote or hybrid work environment, so too does your target customer(s)—and Gartner says that organizations need to shift to digital offerings that blend the virtual and in-person experience. 

Specifically, Gartner’s analysts say that the retail, hospitality, healthcare, and financial services industries will need to adjust their offerings to reconnect with customers. To successfully pivot, Gartner says legacy companies in these industries will need the following capabilities:

• Cloud applications
• Integration of security and data
• Rapid deployment of employee- and customer-facing applications

Surprised? Neither are we. In an episode of SaaSOps Leaders With David Politis, Coupa’s CIO Eric Tan explained that the need for technologies like video conferencing forced some of the most stubborn legacy companies to adopt SaaS applications. It took some time for consumers to adjust, but Gartner’s research (re)confirms that these digital offerings are the new expectation among customers—and that all organizations need to embrace SaaS, IT automation, and an all-in-one SaaS management platform like BetterCloud.

Disclaimer: These graphics were published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request here.

Want to read Gartner’s Top Strategic Technology Trends for 2022 report in its entirety? Click here to download your complimentary copy.

Want to see how BetterCloud can help you realize the tangible business impacts of a hybrid work environment powered by IT automation? Schedule a demo.