The pandemic accelerated digital transformation across all sectors, enabling a seismic shift in working patterns and putting customer experience at the top of the tech agenda. On top of that, we've seen numerous other significant disruptions in 2022.
Considering these combined factors, we believe that three trends will dominate our industry in 2023:
- CMS solutions will evolve substantially to enable broader digital experiences
- Data protection will be a key factor when building digital experiences
- Companies will adopt holistic sustainability
Let's dig into why:
CMS solutions will evolve substantially in 2023
As a result of the current economic situation in the world, there’s a focus on how money is spent and what you get in return, so businesses will have their focus on finding best-of-breed CMS’es that can fulfill their needs and give them a high return on their investment.
As a product of this focus on efficiency, solutions like composable DXP are on the rise, as an answer to specific needs instead of monolith solutions.
The complexity we see in the projects built today also supports the need for composable solutions so that the user is not limited in what they can do and which services they can integrate seamlessly.
Also, the scarcity of human resources is a challenge and is pushing project values/budgets higher and scattering the workforce. This means a bigger appetite for open-source to cut budgets and stay agile.
The B2B experience of buying software has been moving towards looking more like the B2C experience for a while, and that is a change that we will continue to see the effects of in 2023. This will also include greater automation and use of AI In B2B Personalization.
In Umbraco, our ambition is to make it simple for companies worldwide to build a composable digital experience ecosystem with Umbraco at the core, and we are always evolving to make the experience better for our users.
Alongside the recent release of Umbraco 11 and our continued improvements of cloud services, we launched a new marketplace with full integration in Umbraco CMS. This improves the discoverability of integrations and Tech Partners and makes it easier to find the right tools.
Combined with the expanding development and hosting capabilities of Umbraco Cloud organizations are empowered to build powerful and agile digital platforms for the web.
What are the experts saying
Anders Holt, CEO at digital agency and Umbraco gold partner, Novicell, predicts,
"Organizations must be led by customer expectations, not what their technology will allow. More companies recognize that consolidating their digital presence on a single large platform can limit business opportunities.
Instead of trying to serve customers from a single solution that’s expensive and slow to update, we’ll see more organizations use a combination of specialized and composable components that directly meet customer expectations and current business needs.
By embracing a composable architecture, companies will become highly responsive to changes in customer expectations and can quickly and economically adapt and replace components at will."
Thomas Eldblom, CTO at digital agency and Umbraco gold partner, Pentia comments,
“A business-centric approach is vital for success with modern digital platforms, as well as the role of technology in a composable DXP.
For businesses to be competitive in a fast-paced, cut-throat marketplace, mindsets need to change. This includes moving to an outside-in, customer-centric, and outcome-focused approach. Modern digital experience platforms (DXPs) need to reflect this reality and live in the high-speed development track with focus on change, fast time-to-market, and innovation.”
Data protection will be a key fact in Building Digital Experiences
More complex and tight regulations around privacy are on the rise too. The tech industry has for a long time been greatly influenced by the EU, from the rise of GDPR to the threat of fines and sanctions if the rules and guidelines are not followed. This is a trend that will continue to be very prevalent in the tech industry as we move forward.
Rules and regulations differ based on country borders, and many countries have their own rules on how data should be handled and stored to comply with that specific country's legislation. This focus will lead to a higher focus on the ethical use of user data and consumer protection, with major companies already pushing for a change in a more ethical direction where privacy takes a prominent place in the discussion.
It’s our goal in Umbraco to make sure that user data is safe when being handled by and in Umbraco, by making sure that we are always compliant with the current legislation.
Earlier in 2022, we launched a regional cloud hosting in the U.S., making it possible to store data locally for all of our customers in the U.S., so that they can feel safe knowing their data is stored within their own countries' borders.
What are the experts saying
Daniel Llorente Tabor, CTO at digital agency and Umbraco gold partner, Charlie Tango predicts:
”I believe that 2023 will bring even more focus on maintaining an ethical approach to handling user data. The new legislation in the EU regarding data protection and Google Analytics requires new solutions and strategies, and this requirement will most likely spread to other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, etc. that are also collecting data in the same way as Google and are essentially breaking the same laws. I think – and hope – that more companies will change their usage of these platforms not just in fear of a fine, but also as a way of promoting their values and ethics regarding data privacy.”
Mark Lusted, CEO at digital agency and Umbraco gold partner MagiClick, comments,
“The EU Digital Market Act looks to be a game-changing piece of legislation which will force the major players in technology to break open their “walled gardens” in 2023. This has major implications for all companies designing and building digital experiences.
The impact will also likely be felt well beyond the borders of the EU because, as we’ve seen with the previous GDPR legislation, many global businesses seek to implement key areas of compliance globally. Other jurisdictions are also likely to follow suit with similar legislation.
The wider direction of travel for the technology market is clear and those designing and building digital products need to embed the ethical use of consumer data in their product design approach and embed transparent, clear standards on how they will use this data. I also believe these changes will create opportunities as the data held within “gatekeeper” platforms from Big Tech giants are opened up and I have no doubt that innovative use cases for this will soon follow.
CMS vendors will need to adapt the privacy and interoperability features of their platforms and I believe these changes further strengthen the case to move in the direction of composable digital experience platforms, rather than monolithic solutions, as composable architecture affords much more flexibility to adapt and choose components from different ancillary products which best fit the new legislative requirements.”
Sustainability evolves to a more holistic vision in companies
The push for a greater focus on sustainability will no doubt continue to be a focal point in the coming year. We believe this push will be around all three areas: environmental, social and financial.
Environmentally there will be an even greater push for tech companies to find sustainable solutions. This can, for example, be done by managing their CO2e outputs and looking for greener solutions for their power consumption.
Tech companies are still suffering from a lack of diversity, and working to integrate a more diverse working force will gain even more importance in 2023.
Finally, there will be pressure for better profitability paths in the Tech industry so that companies can be financially sustainable. This new situation will push tech companies to be more efficient in the use of resources and find more sustainable ways to growth
We want to do our part in helping the world and being sustainable, both environmentally, socially, and financially. We also want to help inspire others to also take action in any way that they can and are working towards becoming carbon neutral. We encourage suppliers and partners to work towards the same goal.
Both Umbraco and our amazing community have been planting trees and so far we have managed to plant over 17,000 trees in total.
In Umbraco, we are striving to also improve our social sustainability by not only showcasing the diversity of our amazing communities but also by making sure that the team within Umbraco remains inclusive and diverse. In short, our focus is on creating a sustainable culture that puts people and the planet first, while providing an open-source platform that supports our partners’ profitability. We are not perfect, but we are working in a good direction, and hopefully, we can inspire more players in the industry on this.
What are the experts saying
Andy Eva-Dale, Technical Director at digital agency and Umbraco gold partner, Tangent, comments:
“The IT industry is responsible for 3-4% of global CO2 emissions. Every HTTP request uses energy.
The good news is that designers of digital experiences can help to reduce this impact. In 2023 we’ll see more organizations adopting sustainable digital design practices such as asset bundling and optimizing images to reduce their size, improve load speeds and lower energy consumption.
Sustainability also extends to considering how we might reuse common code and reference architectures, rather than duplicating developers’ efforts and squandering scarce resources. Adopting a composable approach to digital experience development allows API-connected technologies to be swapped in and out, rather than ripping and replacing an entire platform. In a challenging economic climate, the ability to extend the life of digital experience platforms by adding in lighter weight technologies that precisely meet business needs and avoid the organization paying expensive license fees for unnecessary features is more likely to win over the C-suite too.”
So here's to 2023...
These are the trends that we believe will dominate 2023. There is no doubt that it is going to be a year, where we are going to be facing a lot of challenges and changes, hopefully for the better. Here’s to 2023, we’re looking forward to seeing what the new year brings.
