Stacy Hayes, Assured Data Protection Chris Baker, Anaplan Kaushalya Somasundaram, Square 01732 759725 31 magazine PREDICTIONS deciding where to take their careers. Leaders must live and breathe their culture and ensure that that culture aligns with the wants and needs of their employees, not just their bottom line. The onus will be on leaders and people managers to ensure that employees feel heard, are fulfilled and are given the tools and encouragement to bring their best selves to work every day. www.Anaplan.com TECHNOLOGY Cyber-security Jason Lee, CISO, Zoom More companies to adopt the Zero Trust security model Conversations around protecting the hybrid workforce from risk will lead security professionals to adopt modern tools and technologies, like multi-factor authentication and the Zero Trust approach to security. I believe companies need these tools to make sure their employees can get work done as safely as possible wherever they are – commuting, travelling or working from home – and ensure that all of their endpoints are secured with continual checks in place. More public companies to have cybersecurity committees on boards One of the most impactful things we have done at Zoom this year is to institute a three-person committee on our board dedicated to cybersecurity matters. Having security industry experience at this level is incredibly valuable, as it allows us readily to address concerns and issues in industry shorthand. While this approach is still relatively new, it has been incredibly beneficial, and I wish we had done it sooner. I’ve heard peers express strong interest in recreating this approach at their own companies, which leads me to expect this will be a priority for organisations in the new year. Zoom.us Digital transformation Chris Baker, Managing Director EMEA, Anaplan UK businesses will move from knee-jerk digital change to true transformation Early on in the pandemic, a lot of companies put significant transformation projects on hold, and many still haven’t picked those projects back up. Pandemic-driven IT investments largely focused on digital sprints; programmes that could be quickly set up to enable remote working, for instance, or vanity projects that drove surface level change at best. However, as we’ve seen over the past two years, business success requires being able to innovate quickly, bringing new ideas to the market ahead of your competition and navigating volatility with little disruption whilst maintaining employee productivity. Gartner forecast IT spending to grow 9% this year (2021), but for most companies, even that won’t be enough to compete or retain top talent. Short-term digital programmes are not enough to plug this gap and larger transformation projects need to be re-evaluated and re-prioritised so that businesses can compete strategically, perform efficiently and be resilient for the future. This means transitioning from a defensive approach (digital band-aids) to an offensive one, with full blown transformation projects aimed at long-term performance and growth. www.Anaplan.com Kaushalya Somasundaram, Head of UK Payments Partnerships & Industry Relations, Square Businesses of all sizes to benefit from tech adoption When the world went online during the pandemic, technology helped businesses survive. In 2022, businesses will take their investment in tech to the next level, automating more processes to save time and improve the customer experience. For example, 71% of retailers are looking to inventory management technology to improve their supply chain efficiency, while 41% plan to invest in technology to monitor real-time store inventories. In catering, 41% of businesses plan to invest in kitchen automation tech. Digital transformation will no longer be the purlieu of large enterprises but will extend to businesses of all sizes across all industries. www.squareup.com Data backup and DR Stacy Hayes, Managing Director, Assured Data Protection Time to call in the professionals The changing nature, sophistication and intensity of cyber attacks are causing a significant change in the mentality of IT Managers. Accelerated by remote work and cloud migration, cybercriminals are targeting critical data, crippling IT infrastructure and holding businesses hostage.With stakes higher than ever, security and data protection operations teams face significant challenges that often can’t be handled in-house, so next year will see an increase in the outsourcing of DR and security to MSPs. IT Managers are looking for a more diverse set of solutions that will protect themselves and outsource the risk and liability that they are now exposed to due to the lack of cyber insurance available to them. It used to be cheaper to build your own backup, DR and security infrastructure and manage it yourself because insurance premiums were cheaper than the product or service. Now, the outsourced service is half the new insurance bill and IT teams are seeing a more secure and efficient set up with MSPs where their staff can focus on more mission-critical initiatives or strategic projects to improve the business. https://assured-dp.com The cloud Ana Pinczuk, Chief Development Officer, Anaplan The rise of the ‘glocal’ business As businesses work to become more resilient and competitive in 2022, they must evaluate their ability to accommodate local demands and conditions (e.g. availability of talent or goods) with global dependencies (e.g. supply chain constraints), so they can meet the needs of customers everywhere. The cloud will spearhead this Continued... Jason Lee
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