Not long ago, we talked about the Great Resignation—where workers were looking for greener pastures at home and work. We were also discussing the opposing end of this trend, the Great Recruitment, as companies were forced to compete fiercely for new and replacement talent.
What appeared as two opposing forces pulling away from each other was a unified movement with two components barreling down the track on a full-speed course toward a collision. What is the name of this point of impact? Let’s glean some insight from the WEF, and call it the Great Reset.
Citing overzealous growth and outsized hiring led to headcount streamlining and other cost-cutting measures, Silicon Valley tech companies laid off as many as 40,000 employees in a 90-day stretch. (1) In the end, many businesses are beginning to favor profits over market growth, cutting costs (and perhaps even some corners) to find the best path for the bottom line and their investors.
As companies and their remaining employees work through the pain of this Great Reset, we’re starting to see the reset trickle down into projects, team structures, and numerous tech implementations. This reset, in turn, impacts software sales—both at the infrastructure and application layers. As noted by venture capitalist Tomasz Tunguz, infrastructure spending may be more resilient than application spending. (2) Since applications are often sold per user or seat, fewer employees equate to fewer licenses. This means less revenue for these vendors, which prompts them to also look at ways to increase—and for some startups, find—profitability.
We are beginning to witness this downstream impact on some of the largest software providers globally. For example, as noted by Tunguz, AWS, GCP, & Azure averaged 44% annual growth a year ago. Today, that figure has dropped to 27%. Just this month, Google & Amazon announced earnings and made statements that suggest the growth in the cloud market will continue to slow. (3) There’s no question that this exact situation is experienced by tech providers in most sectors, regardless of size.
As the technology sector continues to evolve and the impact starts to hit your business ecosystem, it will be crucial for business leaders to stay ahead of the curve and prepare for the next phase of this digital transition. Balancing needs for talent flexibility, infrastructure resiliency, and operational sustainability will be necessary for every industry.
We can expect a shift towards an even more agile and flexible workforce in this next phase. Companies will likely move away from relying solely on traditional hiring models and instead adopt a project-based approach, leveraging the expertise of contract workers as projects require and profitability demands. This shift will also drive the adoption of remote work, trusted service providers, and various virtual collaboration tools, allowing companies to tap into a larger pool of top talent worldwide.
In addition, we can also expect a continued slowdown in infrastructure and application spending. Companies will be more mindful of their technology investments, looking for solutions that deliver maximum value with minimum cost. This includes platforms that avoid vendor lock-in and applications that can easily scale up, down, left, and right with market demand and business needs. As a result, there will be increased competition among technology vendors, forcing many to innovate and differentiate their offerings to remain competitive given these new requirements. Again, with an aim toward profitability.
Business leaders will also need to be more strategic and proactive in their approach to defining, building, and operating their businesses. They must be prepared to embrace new and innovative solutions, such as data-ready hybrid cloud computing models and results-oriented artificial intelligence, to drive efficiency and increase competitiveness. A focus on building a culture that supports a flexible and agile workforce, providing the tools and resources needed to succeed in a rapidly changing technology landscape, will also begin to surface as core skills for the leadership team.
The Great Reset may be challenging, but it also created new opportunities for leaders to shape the future of their businesses in creative, profitable ways.
Taos, an IBM company, knows what it takes to keep a company’s operations running and the environments secure, even amid a Great Reset aimed at increasing profitability.
With Taos DevOpsNow, DevSecOps Now, and Hybrid Cloud Managed Services, you have a partner that can help you meet a set of balanced needs for talent flexibility, infrastructure resiliency, and operational sustainability.
Turn to Taos to turn the Great Reset into Great Outcomes.
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Citations
- ABC 7 News, Tech layoffs 2023: Companies that have made cuts, January 2023
2, 3. Tomasz Tunguz, Predicting Cloud Growth Rates for 2023, February 2023