Hybrid working is here to stay. With it comes increased online activity, information technology requirements and security threats. Simultaneously, costs are being squeezed and the regulatory landscape is changing at pace and scale. We know uncertainty and turbulence will continue to impact organisations throughout 2022, but which trends will impact tech operations the most? In partnership with Tanium, we brought Nimbus Ninety members together to discuss what’s next for tech leaders in 2022.

Wellbeing has become a forefront focal point since the pandemic began. According to our Digital Trends Report 2021, it was found that 35% of respondents saw separating work and home as a top priority to improve working life.

The world of tech is one that can be fairly accused of there being too much going on. The collective attitudes towards different technologies ebb and flow and in general, sum up a generic fickleness in the industry - illustrated nicely by Gartner’s Hype Cycle. As tech commentator Ben Evans writes of tech today, “none of them are The Thing, and all of them are full of questions”.

Over the last 20 years, organisations have channelled their energy, focus and resources into building digital-first customer and user experiences. Meanwhile, the pandemic, by fundamentally altering the nature of customer interactions, has cemented the place of digital self-service, automation and personalised tech stacks within the customer experience journey. In this sense, organisations are positioned, better than ever before, to deliver flawless customer experience through a digital-first approach. But what happens when a chatbot lets a customer down or their problem is too complex for self-service? These important humanised interactions, fundamental to reaching solutions and maintaining brand loyalty, are left to burnt out and ill equipped service providers. Over a breakfast cuppa, Nimbus Ninety, in partnership with Sabio, brought members together from across the community to break down these interactions and explore how technology could provide the solution to complex humanised services.

Serendipity 3, an exclusive New York restaurant, is well-known for its outrageously priced $69 “haute dogs” and $1,000 ice cream sundaes. However when this haute dog was launched, the sales of its $17.95 hot dog went through the roof. The tactic revealed human cognitive bias: the expensive hot dog played the role of a decoy for price relativity.

The last eighteen months has seen drastic change across the data world. With momentum building around data tooling, organisations would be forgiven for thinking they finally had what they needed. However, March 2022 signals the end of support life for data platforms that have dominated the market for years. Whether organisations are mid-migration or yet to start their journey, complex, risky and expensive big data cloud migrations are staring them in the face. So what can organisations do to simplify and de-risk these big data cloud migrations? Nimbus Ninety, in partnership with Unravel Data, Appsbroker and Google Cloud, brought together members from across industry to lend support, share challenges and, perhaps most importantly, enjoy a cheese twist or two. The evening began with presentations from Firat Tekiner, EMEA Data Analytics Practice Lead at Google Cloud and Andy MacInnes, CTO at Appsbroker before breaking out into a highly enjoyable and productive virtual roundtable discussion.

It has been a year since we spoke to the CIO of a major high street café chain, who told us that “cautious optimism is hugely important”. He was leading the optimism movement at the time, and it’s a sentiment that we’ve only seen grow and grow: business leaders are leading through precautionary principles of risk management and modelling macroeconomic shocks, with more organisations than ever saying that they have a business continuity plan in place in the event of a crisis.

To remain customer centric, enterprises must understand ever expanding volumes of data and it has become business critical to utilise a data architecture that best reflects the needs of employees and customers. Two approaches have traditionally dominated: the data warehouse and the data lake. Recently, a third contender has arrived: the data mesh.

Many organisations struggle with inconsistent infrastructure, inefficiencies and risks, and a need to modernise and secure data centres. With VMware Cloud on AWS, organisations are able to unlock new capabilities to drive new efficiencies, better consolidation of IT systems, and enhanced customer experience.

According to the National Cyber Security Centre’s 2021 annual review, there were three times as many ransomware attacks in the first quarter of 2021 than in the whole of 2019. Consultancy UK’s survey of business leaders illustrates many anticipate a rise in cyber-attacks in 2022, with 61% stating that ransomware, in particular, will pose a mounting threat. As our lives have become increasingly digitally focussed, so has crime. With the pandemic accelerating the shift to working from home, what can organisations do to safeguard themselves from being held hostage by online trojans? Nimbus Ninety members were given a step-by-step guide to understanding ransomware recovery by Stefan Ehmann, Business Lead Object Storage Solutions EMEA and Tom Christensen, Global Technology Advisor & Executive Analyst from Hitachi Vantara.