The Year Ahead - My 2022 Predictions
Well, it’s been exactly 10 years since my last set of new years’ predictions. Looking back, and setting aside the upheaval caused by the pandemic, I was fairly on-point in my thinking: (i) marketers took control back from relying solely on social media to engage with consumers and used it like any other marketing channel (that doesn’t imply that social media lost any of its market power, however); (ii) online video service providers saw continued consolidation as the market didn’t develop as fast as we anticipated (although the tides have clearly turned over the past few years as demonstrated by the market power of providers such as Netflix, Hulu, Disney+, Paramount+ and others), (iii) Apple TV was largely a disappointment given all the tools it had at its disposal (up until it finally decided to move into original programming); and (iv) tech IPO’s largely disappointed (generally). Where I was grossly off the mark was the longevity of feature phones versus the rise in smartphone adoption.
Can’t win ‘em all, I guess.
Now a decade later I’m back to share a few thoughts on where I see opportunity in the year ahead. Overall, I think 2022 will be a pivotal year for society and as such, holds a lot of promise. So, let’s get to it…
Supply Chain’s Season of Disruption
The COVID pandemic shined an incredibly bright light on global supply chain and logistics, and the significant underlying structural issues that must be addressed. Fortunately, technological disruption to the global supply chain was already beginning prior to the pandemic and has only accelerated over the past two years. I expect additional significant investments to be made in 2022 and beyond in areas such as machine learning and artificial intelligence for forecasting and procurement automation that should help increase supply chain resiliency and lessen the disruption and impact stemming from the pandemic, not to mention increase in last-mile delivery efficiency and the overall customer experience. From a VC perspective this represents an attractive investment opportunity as companies increase their spending in these and other areas such as cyber-security, business process automation, inventory/capacity management & control and elsewhere.
Blockchain Goes Mainstream
Blockchain and crypto have always been more than digital currencies and we are now starting to see their real strength and how their traditional definition as “a store of value” will continue to expand and evolve. 2022 should see the use of blockchain technologies accelerate and drive advancements in areas such as the aforementioned supply chain and logistics market, subscriber management systems, marketplace platforms (e.g. NFTs) and security. Even gaming will see blockchain take the concept of digital goods and services to an entirely new level. It’s clearly going to be an exciting time across the board for crypto as a technology and asset class for investment (no comment on how Bitcoin, Ethereum or other currencies will fare).
The Continued Rise of Citizen Developers
Companies of all shapes and sizes rely on multiple third-party technologies and solutions to manage their business. Tying together these disparate systems using artificial intelligence, API catalogues, pre-built templates and automation systems has historically been the province of IT departments. However, the advent of DevOps and No-code/Low-code frameworks has enabled and emboldened both organizations and non-technical personnel to quickly and easily assemble tech stacks of multiple 3rd party applications to fit their particular use case. These new “citizen developers” have witnessed increased reliability due to the better sharing of data among these applications which allowed the right information to flow to the right person regardless of the end application being used. I expect the broader DevOps market and, by definition, the number of citizen developers to increase in 2022 and beyond, thus heralding the end of the monolithic tech stack.
A Return to Work
There’s no question that the past two years of the pandemic demonstrated that companies and teams can work effectively in a remote fashion. However, we have yet to test the sustainability of this practice in any meaningful way and already cracks have appeared in its supposed benefits even as people advocate for it in ever increasing tones. This dynamic has even started to cause friction between companies and their employees even though both have the same goals in mind – creating a supportive work environment that is sensitive to the needs of employees while also serving the needs of the company and its customers. My personal bias is towards bringing people back together in the workplace for most of the work week as I believe it provides for (i) more serendipitous knowledge sharing that solutions like Slack can never replicate; and (ii) a better work/life balance through increased interpersonal community and less isolation. As a society we’ve yet to land on the right answer, and maybe there is no “right” answer, but I expect this conversation will become more pronounced in 2022 as we reach the downward slope of the pandemic and expectations of companies’ and their employees diverge on this important topic.
Well, there you go! My predictions for 2022. You may disagree with some or all of what I shared, so I’ll leave you with this immortal lyric from singer/songwriter Billy Joel:
“You may be wrong for all I know
But you may be right”
