It is one of my favorite times of the year. November is a great month to begin planning for the New Year. What technologies will your construction company embrace? What strategies will you shift? What new processes might you put in place? Now is a great time to answer some of these questions.
Coincidentally, it is also the time of year analysts are going strong with their predictions for what technologies will be robust in the year ahead. In the course of the next few weeks, let’s take a look at some of the bold predictions from the analysts and see how it might play out in construction in the year (or years) ahead.
To start, let’s take a look at what Gartner is predicting. Each year the analyst firms identifies the top strategic technology trends for the year ahead. It suggests 2022 will bring about the need for innovation and scalable, resilient technical foundations. Here are a few tech trends that might ring true for construction companies in the New Year.
Generative AI (artificial intelligence). Everyone is talking about the power of generative AI, which is leveraging machine-learning methods to generate brand-new, original, realistic artifacts. By 2025, Gartner expects generative AI to account for 10% of all data produced, up from less than 1% today, and it can be used for a range of activities such as creating software code or targeted marketing, as two examples. But beware, it can also be used for scams, fraud, forged identities, and more.
Data fabric. The number of data and application silos has surged in the last decade—which is all too common in construction—while the number of skilled personnel in D&A (data and analytics) teams has either stayed constant or even dropped. Data fabrics—a flexible, resilient integration of data across platforms and business users—have emerged to simplify an organization’s data integration infrastructure and create a scalable architecture. Gartner suggests the real value is the data fabric’s ability to dynamically improve data usage with its inbuilt analytics, cutting data management efforts by up to 70% and accelerating time to value. I could see real benefit here for the construction industry, which is strapped for both talent and time.
CNPs (cloud-native platforms). CNPs use the core capabilities of cloud computing to provide scalable and elastic IT-related capabilities “as a service” to technology creators using internet technologies, delivering faster time to value and reduced costs. For this reason, Gartner predicts cloud-native platforms will serve as the foundation for more than 95% of new digital initiatives by 2025—up from less than 40% in 2021. Here’s the challenge. We are going to need to secure these platforms in new ways, as recently discussed on The Peggy Smedley Show.
Autonomic systems. As enterprises grow, traditional programming or simple automation will not scale. Autonomic systems are self-managing physical or software systems that learn from their environments. Unlike automated or even autonomous systems, autonomic systems can dynamically modify their own algorithms without an external software update, enabling them to rapidly adapt to new conditions in the field, much like humans can.
DI (decision intelligence). Decision intelligence is a practical discipline used to improve decision making by explicitly understanding and engineering how decisions are made, and outcomes evaluated, managed, and improved by feedback. Gartner predicts that in the next two years, a third of large organizations will be using decision intelligence for structured decision-making.
Cybersecurity mesh. CSMA (cybersecurity mesh architecture) helps provide an integrated security structure and posture to secure all assets, regardless of location. By 2024, organizations adopting a CSMA to integrate security tools to work as a cooperative ecosystem will reduce the financial impact of individual security incidents by an average of 90%.
TX (total experience). TX is a business strategy that combines the disciplines of CX (customer experience), EX (employee experience), UX (user experience), and MX (multiexperience). The goal of TX is to drive greater customer and employee confidence, satisfaction, loyalty, and advocacy. Organizations will increase revenue and profit by achieving adaptive and resilient TX business outcomes.
Will all of these come to fruition in 2022 in a big way? Likely not, but they are trends to keep an eye on now and to consider in the year ahead to prepare for a better tomorrow. Next week, let’s continue the discussion on predictions to see what the New Year has in store.
Original Article: https://constructech.com/predications-preparing-for-a-better-2022/
