Gartner Unveils Top Predictions for IT Organizations in 2023 and Beyond
This forecast addresses everything from the metaverse to the gender pay gap.
October 20, 2022
![Daryl Plummer Daryl Plummer](https://eu-images.contentstack.com/v3/assets/blt10e444bce2d36aa8/bltfa5eb9a405c59a1e/652412828d0db358691933e5/IMG_0356.jpg?width=700&auto=webp&quality=80&disable=upscale)
Daryl Plummer
Fully virtual workspaces will account for 30% of the investment growth in metaverse technologies, reimaging the office experience through 2027.
“What does it mean to work in the metaverse? What does it mean to work in fully immersive spaces beyond just wearing those goofy, oculus-type headsets?” asked Daryl Plummer, Gartner distinguished VP analyst and fellow.
“We’re starting to get much more sophisticated ways of integrating the metaverse and in a fully immersive way,” he said.
The metaverse is more than just virtual reality. It’s about thinking of what it means to collaborate, discovering how work happens in different ways.
By 2025, artificial intelligence will consume more energy than the average European country if sustainable AI practices aren’t put into place.
“We can see AI giving us a 10% increase in sustainability and carbon zero. But bad use of AI will just squander all of that,” Plummer said.
“We’re feeding more and more data into artificial intelligence. It costs more to store it, uses more energy to store it. You’ve got to use mechanisms that allow you to understand how data is going to be stored and how it’s going to be processed to reduce the amount of energy that it uses. We can reduce the use of power and keep our sustainability efforts.”
By 2026, citizen-led denial of service could become more commonplace.
About 37% of customers will try using a virtual assistant to interact with customer service on their behalf; for example, by waiting on hold for them. These legitimate interactions using virtual assistants will pave the way for protests.
Using virtual assistants to shut down operations will become the fastest growing form of attack.
“What we’re seeing is that now the technology has gotten such that the average person can launch a denial-of-service attack by sending [for example] multiple complaints to a review site,” he said.
By 2025, powerhouse cloud ecosystems will consolidate the vendor landscape by 30%, leaving customers with fewer choices and less control of their software.
“There’s an equivalence between the cloud ecosystem giants, the digital giants and the biggest companies in the world. They’re all pretty much the same list. And they are now shrinking your choices to a smaller and smaller set of ecosystems,” Plummer said.
Digital sovereignty is a big deal.
As societies become increasingly globally interconnected and dependent upon digital information, more regulations and legislation are emerging to control and protect citizens and ensure continued availability of critical services. Specifically, governments and commercial regulators are tightening policies regarding the use of non-regional cloud providers for critical or sensitive workloads.
“So essentially, partnerships are the way to go. Local authority and local ecosystems will be joined by global brands—your Microsofts, Googles and Amazons of the world. They will continue to build trust for us in these different regions.”
By 2025, labor volatility will cost 40% of organizations a material business loss which will force a shift in their approach regarding a talent strategy from acquisition toward resilience. In other words, organizations are not going to be so focused on getting new talent hired as they are on making the talent they do have more resilient. What does that mean? In the context of labor volatility, employees are going to want to do more things, not just have one role or skill. When people become more versatile in their work experiences and skills, they are more valuable to the company. And when they’re more valuable to the company, they’re less likely to leave.
“We’re really looking at changing the way that resilience happens across the organization rather than having to restart and retrain new people all the time,” he said.
In a challenging economy, organizations may spend less to be more efficient, but they still must innovate. Businesses are doing so by doubling down on risk and taking more moonshot initiatives.
“We’re seeing boards of directors all over the world who are saying, ‘We’re ready to take a higher level of risk,” said Plummer. “We’re ready to fail more often if we can get the moonshot to work.’”
By 2023, shareholder acceptance of moonshot speculative investments will double. It will make them a viable alternative to traditional R&D spend.
When it comes to social media, consumers are giving away their information for free. By 2027, Gartner predicts this may no longer be the case.
“What we’re saying is that as Web 3.0 grows and the ability to use decentralized modes of exchange of information, you get more control over your data. [Social media companies] are going to have to buy your data from you either directly or indirectly … so you can take control back for yourself,” Plummer said.
By 2025, organizations that remediate documented gender pay gaps will decrease women’s attrition by 30% and reduce pressure on talent shortages.
“We went through this whole process where we couldn’t get enough workers to come work for us. The pressures on attrition and shortages became massive,” he said.
There’s a greater attrition among women because they’re not paid fairly.
Only 32% of the people Gartner surveyed said that pay is fair. And only 34% said that pay is equitable.
“How do we actually start looking at building true equity and reducing the toxic work culture that can be built around inequity?” he asked.
By 2025, employee value metrics like well-being, burnout and brand satisfaction will override return on investment as the decision point in 30% of successful growth investment decisions.
“What we’re saying is essentially the soft metrics are going to finally have their day. If you say that you have a healthier workforce, is their well-being good?” Plummer asked.
It will be just as valuable because now companies will be able to connect satisfaction of employees directly to financial metrics that companies depend on.
“Productivity, cost control, revenue generation … all of them are tied to how well your people feel they are treated and how well working for the company makes them feel. This notion of soft metrics is now an important metric to be added to our portfolio of growth strategies.”
By 2025, employee value metrics like well-being, burnout and brand satisfaction will override return on investment as the decision point in 30% of successful growth investment decisions.
“What we’re saying is essentially the soft metrics are going to finally have their day. If you say that you have a healthier workforce, is their well-being good?” Plummer asked.
It will be just as valuable because now companies will be able to connect satisfaction of employees directly to financial metrics that companies depend on.
“Productivity, cost control, revenue generation … all of them are tied to how well your people feel they are treated and how well working for the company makes them feel. This notion of soft metrics is now an important metric to be added to our portfolio of growth strategies.”
Economic uncertainty is one of the primary concerns of customers, buyers and executives, according to a Gartner analyst. It might be stating the obvious. However, it can’t be emphasized enough: It is the top external threat to consistent business growth.
Yet, there’s opportunity that exists within uncertainty.
Daryl Plummer is a Gartner distinguished VP analyst and fellow. In his talk this week at the Gartner IT Symposium/Xpo, he outlined 10 strategic IT predictions shaping 2023 and beyond. These can counter challenging economic times, he said. See the slideshow above to understand how.
“We’re finding more pressure to cut costs back more to be efficient. At the same time, we’re getting just as much pressure as we’ve ever had to innovate new things and to succeed,” Plummer said.
“Because uncertainty heralds change. And change often opens the door to opportunity… These predictions of the future are all about how you start thinking about an opportunity that lies within the uncertainty.”
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