As the new year started, still living with COVID-19 at our heels, we grapple with the reality that local firms must, while navigating uncertain change, take an emboldened step towards strategic revenue increases, client acquisition and maintenance to steady their business’ boats.

While legacy businesses continue to dominate the consumer mindshare and share of wallet, agile brands are now at the forefront of the conversation, leveraging data, insights, social media, and consumer behaviour to boost their bottom line and remain buoyant in the sea of a payment crisis.

Atop all this, the consistent mutations of the COVID-19 virus leave many business owners unsure of where their next client will come from. To wade through the digital challenges that shift so often, we’re recommending the top tech trends that help businesses be one step ahead.

Here are a few you can employ in your 2022 business strategy:

1) Implementation of consumer-focused, experience-based technologies creates newer, more reliable ways to connect with customers and enhance user experience. In addition, it provides valuable data that can help you plan for your consumers, such as the use of bots. Many available in-app or easily created with a tech partner save time in crowded inboxes, boost your leads, and improve customer response time.

2) Augmentation of existing customer-facing applications and websites to capture consumer behaviour. Every touchpoint should be tracked now more than ever to get to know your target market’s movements. Once you know them, you can plan accordingly.

3) Analysis of consumer behaviour data to make informed decisions. Organisations need to make business decisions through the use of data analytics. Everything from exit rates to purchase patterns helps in business planning, etc; these will be key from now on.

4) Performance of customer experiments involves presenting scenarios to customers, recording the reactions and measuring and analysing them to make informed decisions. Get in the mind of the people that you serve to meet their needs now.

5) Implementation of cybersecurity protocols such as disaster recovery software that works as a mitigation strategy against ransomware. Protection is a keyword in 2022; ensure your data is secure; use things like endpoint protection software that can be deployed manually or remotely.

6) Implementation of workplace automation using IoT and AI (Internet of things and artificial intelligence) to fill gaps created by labour shortages. This is especially needed for high-traffic work environments which see ebbs and flow in demand.

7) Partnerships with trained and certified technology professionals that are industry-validated. Partnerships will be essential for 2022 as brands seek to save on energy to reduce burnout and staff morale.

Delton Phillips is the director of particular presence technologies (PPT), AWS cloud computing experts. With over 20 years software development experience, he has extensive knowledge of designing and implementing software solutions for clients of varying scales. He is a hands-on technical leader across the region, working exclusively with Amazon Web Services as the Caribbean delivery partner of choice for AWS.