Top 4 Trends in IT Operations for 2023

With every new year comes a bunch of new tech trends that everyone has a take on. In the tech space, changes can come rapidly, and depending on who you listen to, there will be many different perspectives on where you should focus your attention in your business’s IT strategy.

The last few years have seen massive changes in the way we do business, and that has come with shifts in the technology we rely on to manage our environments. Organizations have moved much of their IT operations out of the office and into a more distributed model, which has shifted their IT needs significantly.

Although the last few years brought dramatic shifts that hopefully won’t be as necessary in the future, it’s important to think about what will change in 2023 because it will better position your organization to grow. Here are a few key areas where IT is likely to evolve moving into 2023:

Cybersecurity Will Shift Towards Resiliency

In the past, organizations have often relied on tools like firewalls and antivirus software to ensure their systems are secure. Their hope was that with enough layers of software and hardware, they could prevent hackers from entering their system and compromising their IT environment.

Nowadays, there are so many sophisticated tools for hackers and bad actors to access company systems. Even when companies deploy the top-of-the-line tools to secure their systems and a robust training program for their employees, there’s a good chance malware will infect your system at some point.

So, what should you do? While it may seem hopeless, there’s a ton of value in continuing to invest in robust cybersecurity measures. However, it’s also important to take a different approach to the goal you’re trying to achieve.

Previously, businesses focused on stopping a breach before it occurred, and that’s useful as a first step because it delays the event. However, now companies should think about what happens when their business’s system is breached, because on a long enough time horizon, every organization will see a breach of some kind. That’s where resiliency planning comes in.

You can find out more about the specifics of resiliency planning on Hammer Tech’s blog (which you can find here), but generally speaking it’ll be more important to create a cybersecurity plan that can withstand unforeseen events without causing operational failure in the organization. There are many ways that an organization can prepare for the unforeseen and having a robust cybersecurity posture to start with is important, but additional planning is needed to ensure your organization won’t be caught unprepared.

Internet Access Will Become Even More Critical

There are very few businesses today that can operate without the use of the internet. However, organizations are employing far more tools than email or internet search, and businesses are often utilizing a hybrid or remote workplace model to some degree.  As a result, users require high speed connectivity whenever and wherever they are for organizations to thrive in the new environment.

Luckily, along with the increased demand, there’s a shift in network connection technology that can accommodate those changes. The deployment of 5G networks has significantly improved mobile network performance. Many knowledge workers have realized the goal of being able to work any time, any place. As wireless device use expands, 5G will be able to offer a flexible internet connection that can accommodate devices with different connectivity needs.

Within the office and campus environment, Wi-Fi 6 and 6E will become more widely used, and with the updated protocol comes a stable network that can increase the capacity of your organization’s wireless network. Increased capacity means that you’ll be able to expand your IT operations and create an organization that can respond to the changing needs of your customers.

Collaboration Technologies Will Become More Streamlined

The increased reliance on a distributed model of work over the past few years has led to an explosion in collaboration tools available to organizations. Companies have invested heavily in technologies that will enable instant messaging, video conferencing, and file sharing so they can work together and innovate without the use of a shared office space.

However, many organizations are relying on too many tools and now have employees that are fatigued by the number of applications they have to switch between. As a result, there will be a push to streamline collaboration tools so that employees have fewer applications to switch between when working together.

Strategic Data Storage and Management Will Be a Focus

In addition to deploying more collaboration tools than ever before, many organizations made a switch to the cloud without fully considering how they wanted to do it, and it’s likely that 2023 will see many organizations repairing the issues this rush to the cloud has caused.

There is no doubt that shifting to the cloud is a beneficial move for organizations (you can find more on the advantages of the cloud on our blog), but what many companies fail to realize is that shifting to the cloud without first strategizing about what you want to accomplish with that shift is a recipe for disaster. As uncertainty increases around the economy, more leaders will evaluate where they can optimize their organization, and one of the easiest ways to do that is to evaluate how the cloud is being utilized. This could mean that businesses shift their cloud operations to include multiple cloud systems, colocation services, hybrid models, or a single cloud infrastructure, but it would start with identifying what’s needed to serve the business followed by a reordering of resources to meet that need.

Additionally, as businesses hone in on what they truly need from the cloud, there will also be an increased focus on how organizations can better manage their data. Cloud computing enables some organizations to store vast troves of information and having a strategy for managing the flow of that data becomes critical to the success of any organization.

To find out more about how the cloud will be utilized by businesses in 2023, click here.

Conclusion

Technology is constantly changing, and starting a new year off right always comes with an assessment of where you are and where you want to be. With the changes to technology occurring across so many different areas like cybersecurity, connectivity, collaboration, and the cloud, there’s an increased need for strategic planning to ensure your investments maximize their ROI for your organization.

If you’re looking for assistance with navigating the changing tech landscape in 2023, Hammer Tech’s consultants have been assisting clients for more than 40 years. You can find information about getting in touch on our Contact Us page.