If the last few years have taught us anything, it is that the future is predictably unpredictable. This year, businesses face pressure stepping up to evolving expectations from employees and their stakeholders, and focus on leveraging the right technologies to remain relevant in an ever-evolving, digital business environment.
Here are some of the key business and technology trends in 2023 that I foresee will open a new chapter for Malaysia and ways businesses can embrace them.
- Cybersecurity and IT infrastructure need to transform to keep up with evolving landscape.
Connections between people, devices, and data are ever-expanding, with billions of open, shared, and accessible touchpoints multiplying in a hybrid work, cloud-first world. While it’s created limitless possibilities, it’s also introduced incredible complexity. As organizations and users become more distributed, the demand for anywhere, anytime access to applications requires the transformation of networks to deliver uninterrupted connectivity while maintaining security. This is especially important as three-quarters (74%) of respondents in Malaysia say they want a hybrid working model in the future, yet 36% say their company still needs the right networking infrastructure.
Businesses will need to modernize their IT infrastructure with SD-WAN technologies which will allow them to securely connect users, devices, and IoT to systems, apps, and data with unified management and security policy administrations. They must also move away from stand-alone security toward a connected platform strategy that focuses on detection, response, and recovery.
- A new era of predictive networks has arrived, and it will change how we define business agility.
Competing in today’s digital landscape, what can be delivered digitally, must be delivered digitally and it must be always on. Applications are just the front door to an expansive digital landscape that is evolving and growing in scale and complexity. With ASEAN’s super app market forecasted to reach US$23 billion or RM99.53 billion in revenue by 2025, applications are now the new business model. Businesses have one shot to impress customers, with over half (57%) saying if their digital service does not perform, they won’t use them again.
The key to delivering a great digital experience is having full-stack visibility into the different data, system interactions, interdependencies, and business metrics that are happening in real time across the digital interface. Predictive network engines that can gather data from a multitude of telemetry sources and integrate them into different models to predict user experience issues will be powerful tools. They will help bridge the current gap between IT and business teams, allowing IT leaders to fix issues before they happen and business teams to focus on agility and innovations that will win customers’ hearts.
- Physical spaces like offices and healthcare facilities will be reimagined for inclusiveness in a hybrid work environment.
A significant increase in employees working from home now means that 98% of meetings will have at least one remote participant. However, only 6% of meeting rooms and classrooms globally are video enabled. In the coming year, hybrid work will create a knock-on effect on physical workspaces. Every industry and company will be compelled to rethink their workspaces, whether it is an office or healthcare facility to drive an inclusive environment for all.
This will unfold through closer collaboration between IT, HR, and facilities to drive change, from integrating inclusive features such as AI-powered audio intelligence/background noise cancellation to equipping physical spaces with the right video conference devices for a seamless, secure hybrid collaboration and updating employee policies and company guidelines to ensure all employees are fairly rewarded in the long run, regardless of where they work from.
- Private 5G, in hand with Wi-Fi6, will revolutionize new cloud, edge, and IoT innovations.
We foresee a greater adoption of 5G as more businesses in the Asia Pacific begin to realize the benefits of digitizing and using future technologies. This can potentially drive the total 5G revenue in the region to US$23.89 billion or RM103.38 billion in 2025. The combination of Wi-Fi 6 and 5G will pave a new future of connectivity for almost every industry, by providing three times more bandwidth and five times the speed of Wi-Fi 5. This will allow enterprises to modernize, automate their operations, and benefit from the resulting productivity gains. Its scalability brings the promise of wide-scale deployment of mobile robots, and self-driving vehicles closer to reality.
As Malaysia moves faster to widespread 5G deployment, key sectors will stand to benefit like manufacturing, which requires high bandwidth and secure connectivity to support critical applications in process automation, robotics, remote monitoring, and more. To support the nation’s transition, Cisco and Telekom Malaysia last year announced a 5G-as-a-service center of excellence to springboard 5G adoption and develop proof of concepts for enterprises and vertical industries that address unique business challenges.
- Purpose will anchor everything that businesses do, with ESG making further headway into boardroom agendas.
Purpose will only become more relevant and central to companies in the year ahead. A study published by Harvard Business Review revealed more than half of purpose-driven companies experienced 10% business growth compared to 42% of non-purpose-driven companies. It is essential to attracting and retaining talent and is ultimately good for people and the world. Measuring the impact of each company’s purpose journey, particularly its social and environmental impact, will increasingly take center stage in corporate decision-making rather than just being a check-the-box activity.
For instance, we will see more public and private corporations come together to determine ESG reporting frameworks and disclosure standards as sustainability targets and regulations firm up. As companies set ambitious greenhouse gas emissions reduction targets including net-zero or other science-based targets, in line with Malaysia’s goal to achieve carbon neutrality by 2050, we expect technology to play a bigger role in reducing emissions, improving resource efficiency and enabling more circular business models.
By Hana Raja, Managing Director, Cisco Malaysia
