A little reflection doesn’t do any business any harm. It’s good to look back once in a while and assess what has been. The organisation grows and develops by reflecting on what happened and what was done in response. Accepting your flaws is a prerequisite to knowing how to improve them the next time around. 

The year 2021 has been similar to 2020 in that it was still challenging. Restrictions are still in place, and the economy’s overall condition is still not back to the way it was before. So, I believe it’s safe to say that this is the new norm now. The good news is we certainly saw a significant boost in people changing their business structure and adjusting the way they do things towards the end of the year. 

And now that we’re in 2022, the cloud of COVID still hangs above us but we just have to deal with whatever is going on and work through it. The last 12 or 18 months have been confusing, to say the least. We’ve been put on hold to think about what’s going to happen. Where are we going to be? What are we going to do? Indeed, there’s been industries that have been more affected than others. And I think that’s still going to continue throughout 2022. So, it’s important to know where we’re heading and where we need to focus in 2022. And for me, it revolves around three key things.

Flexibility

I think there’s still room for us to be more agile and flexible in the way our teams work and the way we engage with our clients. We need to build systems, infrastructure, processes, and policies around giving our team the flexibility they need to work more efficiently while also ensuring that we can promptly deliver the services and products our clients need. 

Moreover, I think our customers are going to be looking for a little bit

more flexibility in the engagement model as well– how they connect, how they collaborate, and how they access.

Automation and business improvement process

Flexibility and automation go hand in hand. But you have to get that flexibility in place first to maximise your business structures. You need to start looking at the technology you have and the systems you’re using and ask yourself how you can build that out, make things a little more efficient, or make them a little bit automated? With the way things are, there needs to be less reliance on the physical components of work such as physical paper, physical desk, and physically seeing people. I believe the electronic movement of data and information will be critical.

Cybersecurity 

There have been some really big incidents over the last 12 months. Cybersecurity is something that every business, regardless of size, must take seriously. You must start getting the right systems and the tools and protection measures in place while making sure that your team and users are educated and up-to-date with the current schemes and attacks because this is where the big gaps tend to be. 

As much as you need to spend on technology solutions, it’s important that you’re also investing time and effort into your team and educating them on what needs to happen. Otherwise, you will still be vulnerable. You need to take into consideration the people element in cybersecurity. 

The cybersecurity piece is just an evolving beast of an area. The number of threats coming out, the vulnerabilities being identified, the targeting, the hacks, the fishing— they’re relentless, and they’re not going to stop. It could your business out of business. That’s the reality of it. You need to maintain your internal security and ensure that the supporting systems are secured and audited.

So heading into 2022, I think these are the three key areas that every business should focus on.

All in all, I think 2022 is going to be an exciting year. We’ve learnt a lot over the last two years, and hopefully, you’ve all learned how to adapt and deal with these situations. We just have to keep ticking along and keep moving forward. There is still massive amounts of opportunity for improvement around how businesses are leveraging technology. Yes, there’s going to be cost and time involved in getting businesses up to speed, but these days, cybersecurity is no longer a luxury or nice to have. It’s a necessity. 

There are still going to be some challenges like the previous years. Believe me, I hate to harp on the whole pandemic thing, but look, it’s still there, and it’s still annoying. I don’t really think anyone knows what will happen with it, so we truly have to live with it. But there’s still opportunity in that. 

We just have to find it and continue to keep on keeping on!