It has been nearly two years since the global outbreak of COVID-19. In 2020, companies moved their ways of working online almost overnight; in 2021, hybrid remote work gradually became the norm, with every brand event and every meeting offered online or livestreamed at the same time. People have grown more accepting of digital tools and increasingly prefer to replace old service models with online systems. Global market trends will continue to break with the way things used to be done, and corporate digital transformation will not slow down but accelerate. With this in mind, software development company 5xRuby shares the following four market transformation trends.

[Figure 1] Preparing your digital transformation for 2022 (Photographer: cottonbro, Link: Pexels)

1. Growing Demand for People-Centered "Transformation" of Market Services

According to Deloitte's report " 2022 Global Marketing Trends ", 75% of executives plan to invest more budget in hybrid experiences in 2022. No matter how good a company's mix of products and content is, it cannot reach its full potential without well-integrated digital tools and technology. In 2021, common demands for digital services included digitizing internal company systems (e.g. meeting room booking systems), digitizing service reservation systems (e.g. restaurant ordering systems), moving traditional logistics and procurement processes online, optimizing apps for e-commerce and cross-border e-commerce, and digitizing healthcare service systems (e.g. vaccine appointments, clinic registration, telemedicine).

Sho Chang, Executive Director of 5xRuby, says the company received a particularly high volume of inquiries about these needs this year. Some clients already had their own booking systems, but the pandemic drove usage up to the point where they could no longer make do and needed better optimization. Experience has shown that optimized systems not only raise efficiency, but also let companies clearly see the benefits of going digital. Digital services adopted in response to the pandemic have become a permanent change.

2. The Pandemic Showed Companies the Benefits of a "Remote Business Environment"

Many companies have announced plans for digital transformation, yet at first they focused their transformation on serving consumers and failed to give employees a good "remote business environment." In 2021, driven by the global pandemic, corporate attitudes shifted as well. Companies that had previously neglected their internal systems and IT infrastructure were forced to change how they work, but once they embarked on digital transformation they gradually began to experience its benefits.

In a press release, US IT consulting firm Gartner noted that 74% of CFOs plan to move some employees to permanent remote work after the pandemic, which not only eases the pressure of management costs but also improves productivity. Building a "remote business environment" will therefore remain in focus in 2022, especially "deploying virtual desktops" and cultivating a digital-tool mindset among employees, creating an environment that gives staff what they need to do their jobs while keeping information secure, with an emphasis on the human needs of internal office work. (Further reading: Breaking the Brand Myth: Deploying Virtual Desktops Starts with Clarifying Your Needs; How Can Companies Build the Best Remote Work Environment for Their Employees?)

3. Data Leaks Are Worsening, and Information Security Needs "Greater Attention"

Businesses across every industry are joining the digital transformation, but not every company has sufficient security awareness. Everyone knows how important it is, yet with limited budgets and resources it is easily relegated to the level of "doing just enough." In 2021, Taiwan saw a number of security breaches at brands, and some merchants' data was used in phone phishing scams, doing great damage to their brand image. Now that many companies have moved their system services and customer experiences online, information security needs to receive "greater attention"; after all, if it is not done well, it will become a weak point in a company's services.

Gartner has predicted that in 2022, APIs (application programming interfaces) may become a vector for hacker attacks, leading to data leaks from web applications. In the new year, companies must manage information security more intelligently and must not count on luck. Even if a company is not facing an immediate security crisis right now, once one occurs it may pay an enormous price and spend even more money patching security holes.

4. Allocate Your Budget Correctly and Make Technology an Asset in the "Content Is King" Era

As companies tackle digital transformation in 2022, whether moving from offline to online marketing, creating consumer experiences, or improving brand image and product packaging, budgets are growing in two areas. The first comes from MarketingProfs' report "2022 B2B Content Marketing Research": 64%  of respondents knew their company's annual budget, and of those, 22% said their company would allocate 50% of its total 2022 budget to content marketing. Beyond reflecting the coming cookieless environment and a future that places greater weight on privacy, this result also means companies will need web technology and tools even more. Only by building online platforms that are stable, secure and trusted by the public can technology become an asset for marketing content.

On the other hand, the same report also found that 43% of respondents said their spending on hybrid events (generally meaning offline forums or events that are livestreamed online at the same time) in 2021 rose 39% over 2020. Sho Chang says that in 2022, all business interaction design and simulated interaction spaces will face "digital-first" work solutions. Companies must be prepared and recognize that offline experiences will only play a supporting role in the future, and in their new budgets, they must also plan for the technology costs that "hybrid events" may incur.

Wrapping Up 2021—Building the Right Mindset for Digital Transformation

Since the second half of last year, many companies have begun to realize the importance of digital transformation and have become more proactive than ever in seeking professional advice. In practice, however, there is still a tendency to "ask a lot but do little." Many companies are still waiting and seeing, believing the pandemic will end in time, or defining the new services they plan to build as "stopgap measures for the duration of the pandemic," and continuing to work only in the ways they are used to. Digital transformation has now become a crowded and competitive field, and globally renowned corporate groups have set up digital transformation departments to meet a hybrid and diverse future. Companies must take digital transformation seriously and recognize that even when the pandemic ends, some changes can never be undone.

Heading into 2022—Review and Optimize Your Existing Solutions

In 2020, people picked themselves up from the unprecedented shock of the pandemic. In 2021, new changes continued to unfold around everyone. After two years of transformation taking shape, the world has found strategies for responding to the situation amid the changes. With only days left until 2022, companies can now focus on rebuilding their service experiences. This means not only thinking about and reviewing their products, but actually "getting moving" on optimization.

This year, many companies chose to pour in more budget in a panic, yet their products still showed no improvement. In response, Sho Chang urges companies not to throw themselves into disarray. When they find that their partners and vendors cannot solve their problems, or are not a good fit for the company's post-transformation strategy, they should first pause and observe, and if necessary set themselves a "stop-loss point," regroup, and then take action.

As companies grow increasingly dependent on technology and more demanding about quality, they need to be more careful when choosing technology partners. Rather than simply comparing prices, they should take a long-term view and choose high-quality partners who can make digital transformation happen, spending money in the right places and no longer stepping on landmines. (Further reading: No More Landmines! Three Tips for Choosing a Good Development Team)

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About 5xRuby

Founded in 2014, 5xRuby Co., Ltd. is one of Taiwan's most representative companies specializing in the Ruby programming language, building web services primarily on the Ruby on Rails framework. Its brand clients span Taiwan, Singapore, Japan and beyond. The company has helped an overseas startup build a cross-border e-commerce service that went on to raise a Series A round, and has developed apps and web services for many publicly listed Taiwanese companies. Through technical advisory and enterprise technology consulting, it gives brands a solid foundation for web development and delivers professional web solutions.

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