(Expansion) – Identifying trends is somewhat speculative due to the probable action of unforeseen variables. The pandemic taught us a lesson that will take many years to forget: reality can always have a surprise in store for even the most careful planners.
However, the data provided by the research carried out in the Mexican market allows us to state with certainty the following as the most clearly manageable lines of evolution in the short and medium term:
According to the International Data Corporation (IDC), the highest growth in investment in IT forecast for 2022 corresponds to commerce; 30% of companies plan to spend 11% more of their annual income on this item and the value of the omnichannel market in Mexico will grow from 610 million dollars in 2022 to 846 million dollars in 2025, 38.7%.
This involves the development of digital experiences for customers, not only in the field of electronic commerce but also in terms of virtual stores, physical store experiences, omnichannel service, logistics and deliveries, various services, payments and procedures, etc. It involves improving the ability to acquire new customers with diverse profiles, retaining existing ones, and developing and introducing new or improved digital products and services to the market.
Other factors to drive investment in IT are: increased productivity for the financial sector, achieving the best physical/digital integration in the customer experience, for the manufacturing and services sectors, and introducing new or improved products or services for trade.
For companies in the telecommunications sector, this means thinking, together with their clients, of solutions developed from an approach that is increasingly focused on the client’s experience and adapted to the nature, characteristics and needs of each company; it is very different, for example, what is required in retail than in manufacturing, or in a large bank than in a fintech,
A challenge for traditional banking is to be as agile as fintechs in responding to customer needs, and this is something where cloud processing can be instrumental.
Other focuses of future attention for IT are: information security (of all the companies investigated by IDC, the number 1 priority for IT is security (more than 40%), cloud management (for the financial sector, the priority it is the Data Management Platform -about 60%- and for manufacturing it is hybrid IT and cloud management -55%- and customer experience.
According to VeeamCast, the Veeam podcast for IT leaders, it is estimated that there will have been a ransomware attack in the world every seven seconds this year. Although only the most notable cases appear in the news, this crime affects organizations of the most diverse types and sizes, causing damage, often irreparable, both economically and in terms of data, operations and even reputation.
Regarding cloud management, according to IDC, the use of the cloud grew in Mexico, in the business segment, by 31% during 2021 and it is expected that the value of the public cloud market in our country will have reached the closing of 2022 the 44,000 million pesos thanks to the fact that more and more help is sought for the development of cloud infrastructure and the management of the hybrid cloud in terms of both processing and storage of information.
In customer experience, there is no doubt that IT people have had to thoroughly incorporate the human interface into their work schemes and learn from the needs and requirements of customers to offer them increasingly better experiences.
Other relevant factors of change are: digital transformation, something that has accelerated since the pandemic and that opens up a panorama of opportunities when companies in Latin America invest 6% of their income in digital transformation, while in the United States the figure is 16%; and security in the supply chain, adapting it to changes in digitization and improving collaboration schemes both internally and externally to diversify it and adapt it to changes in demand and macroeconomic factors. In fact, 55.4% of Mexican manufacturing companies recognize the need to diversify to maintain competitiveness.
We do not know what surprises the future reality may give us, but we can foresee where change is heading in the areas in which we work, and thus prepare ourselves to anticipate both problems and opportunities.
Editor’s note: Julio Palacios is director of the Global Business Development division at MCM Telecom. He is a Telecommunications Engineer from the National Polytechnic Institute, a Master in Information Technology and Administration from ITAM, a Master Degree from the Institut Mines-Telecom Business School in France and graduated from the IPADE D1 program. Follow him on . The opinions published in this column correspond exclusively to the author.
