2022 is gone: Looking back to look ahead

2022 is gone. Time to review what has happened. Maybe, just maybe, this will give as a tip of what’s to come in 2023.

Do you want a word for 2022? One that I think it describes the year fair enough would be UNCERTAINTY.

Energy costs boosted already in late 2021, but I don’t recall anyone predicted up to what extent.  It is true that the Russian-Ukraine / USA-China conflict didn’t help at all. Gas shortage in the middle of climate change events, logistics problems, food warehouses emptied… lead to inflation even in the temple of price stability like Germany. From the geoeconomics point of view, 2022 could be called “the mother of all disasters”.

From the IT business perspective, DC customers have been hit by this energy costs uprising. If anyone in the SME landscape had doubts, they moved to the cloud. Corporations and larger organizations had to learn fast to adjust budgets. Also, WFH (work from home) has become a well extended norm in many businesses, becoming a challenge for CIOs when protecting their organization’s digital assets. I think there is no need to get deeper in the cybersecurity arena. Everyone agrees that it will remain an important corporation concern and organizations will increase their budgets here. The uncertainty here is not “IF” you will be attacked but “WHEN” and “HOW” you will be able to respond.

But economy has been just one aspect of uncertainty. Look what happened in the political arena. The UK has experienced a nightmare of 3 PMs in just 2 months. And they are not alone in this instability game. Important crisis or changes in Italy, France, or Spain, just to mention a few.

No, the Covid crisis is not over yet. China has changed their mind and is now leaving the Zero Covid Policy and who knows what effect will have this transition at the pandemic worldwide. One thing, though, is clear: organizations need tools to keep functioning in a distributed manner. Challenges in business during pandemic: Collaboration (more than just communication) tools are required.

Yes, we had severals general meetings at the beginning of the year. They were virtual. But Hey! someone thought a little bit and realized that the main purpose of a general meeting (communication, communication, communication) didn’t really happen unless we could experience together that we are a community. So, we gathered together again in September, this time in real meetings.

The need of a community is well seen in a Football World Cup. No mattered it took place in winter and that it had to stop regular competitions. We all put attention to what happened in Qatar. The world is getting smaller, and business is getting international too in Acacia (the reason this article is now in English).

Many things have happened also internally in Acacia. Althoug challenges and opportunities we keep the essence. Our customer’s needs. We have decided to change our organization so we could stay focused on results for our customers. In 2023, we will keep it this way.

Customers have got used to live among uncertainty. So, the ability to adapt is king! 2022 is gone and 2023 looks good for innovators. Agility, flexibility, Cost-effective, Green … apparently are the key for the future. That’s what we learned from 2022.

Welcome 2023!