In the last decade, digital transformation of the workplace focused on mobile – provisioning a global workforce with smartphones laid the foundation for anytime-anywhere work. Even though actual productivity on-the-go was largely limited to simple tasks such as email, document review and video-conference, the potential for full desktop-like productivity for a distributed and mobile workforce is huge. Especially with declining smartphone prices, the opportunity to fully mobilize and enhance productivity for blue-collar, casual and rural workers is huge.  

This decade will focus on cloud – migrating core workloads from office premises to virtual environments accessible anywhere. Cloud infrastructure and mobile access, combined with big data, artificial intelligence, IoT and robotics will transform and enhance how we work, produce, distribute, and consume goods and services. World Economic Forum estimates 13% point increase in the technology-to-people share of work between 2018-2022.

COVID-19 has been a watershed event for workplace technology. Public and private sector now recognise the need for a robust digital infrastructure to backup physical service, supply chains and production capabilities. The latest IDC Update (Nov’21) has doubled its Digital Transformation (DX) spending forecast to $ 2.8 Trillion for 2025, compared to pre-COVID. Germany for example is undergoing the most comprehensive public sector digitization program known to date as 6000 administrative services are scheduled to go digital in 2022. The top sectors in terms of digitization spend are manufacturing, professional services and retail, even as double-digit growth is expected across sectors. 

Labour market shifts will further accelerate digitization of work. A significant portion of the workforce – estimated 17.4% globally – will continue work-from-home (WFH) in the long run and require full “office-like” productivity tools at home supported by distributed networks and cloud backend. HR Managers report that job change and re-skilling are top priorities for 2022 requiring considerable investments in training and professional development. Over 255 million FTE workers affected by COVID-related job loss or change are switching to freelance work, entrepreneurship, and the creators’ economy. As these new labour markets grow, so will the demand for MSME resource management & productivity tools, and digital marketplaces to trade everything from NFT art to plumbing services.

The Future of Work is here. Is your business digitally ready?