Small Business Trends 2022
What are small business trends 2022? In 2021, businesses are faced with significant transitions and are now looking forward to 2022. After a 14-month pandemic-focused period, companies are now looking for a digital transformation that will continue their focus on the future. This will include applying the best of 2021’s lessons to become more agile.
Many service-oriented industries are experiencing a decline in productivity as employers struggle to find workers. The government continues to spend insufficiently to prevent inflation from spiraling out of control. This is a severe threat. Many workers couldn’t work for much of the last 14 months.
We’ll discuss the top Small Business Trends 2022 for small businesses in the coming year and how business owners can prepare for the future. Read on! Top 5 small business trends 2022.
Remote teamwork will play a vital role
Before the rise in demand for knowledge-based jobs, remote work was slow to grow. However, forward-thinking employers saw the potential for remote work to increase their access to new talent pools as the internet grew in speed and employment became more digital. This new trend raised the efficient employee management platforms.
Remote work has many benefits, including:
- Workers can choose to live in areas with a lower cost-of-living;
- Employees are more productive when there is a less idle chat at the office;
- Employees have a better work/life balance when they spend less time driving.
The increase in the use of Mobile Communication Apps
The rise of mobile devices has primarily driven society in the past decade. They play an integral part in remote work and communications. The speed and power of mobile devices, which fit in our pockets, enable everything from commerce to banking and healthcare to evolving quickly. Imagine telling a teenager all about long-distance phone charges when they can have a video chat with anyone anywhere in the world.
However, the ease of communication has led to a problem. It’s easy to chat with anyone, and everyone receives a stream of messages throughout the day. This has made it difficult for people to stay focused for long periods. Unfortunately, this is a new trend in America.
Smartphone vendors such as Apple and Google have developed tools to track screentime. In the past few years, smartphone users have spent more time on their smartphones than ever before.
It reached 186 minutes daily in 2020. By 2022, it will be around 3 hours 17 minutes per day. Unfortunately, communication is both a blessing as well as a curse. While new technologies are exciting, they must not be taken over our lives.
Cloud-Based Services (cloud server vs. dedicated server)
It has never been easier to build an IT infrastructure. With connectivity everywhere, IT organizations must rethink building their network infrastructure to meet this increasing demand.
Cloud-based services are a standard technology used by both IT Ops and Development teams. In 2022, there will be a shift between cloud servers vs. dedicated servers.
Amazon, Google, and Microsoft offer services that take the guesswork out to build a global infrastructure. Companies can use these companies as a cloud server to host their applications and infrastructure, thereby avoiding spending millions on data centers.
On the other hand, a dedicated server like HostZealot allows enhanced customization as administrators can self-service their server. Therefore, website administrators have total control and flexibility about their software, server, and security systems.
Furthermore, while using dedicated servers, you can also use the VPS service from https://www.hostzealot.com/vps to achieve the best result.
Comparing a cloud server vs. a dedicated server, many companies have found that cloud-based services solve their scaling problems. They can add storage and computing power as they grow. However, it can be expensive and time-consuming to double your infrastructure by setting up a data center which is why a cloud server will dominate the cloud server vs. dedicated server debate.
Cloud-based services allow you to expand your infrastructure by simply adding your recurring subscription to the cloud service provider. Given all its benefits, it’s easy to see why it is a top business trend in 2021.
- 94% of enterprises use cloud-based services already;
- 30% of IT budgets include a line item to support cloud computing;
- Organizations using cloud services leverage almost five different cloud platforms on average;
- Half of all enterprises that use cloud services will spend over $1.2 million annually;
- Public cloud infrastructure will increase by 35% in 2021.
Ecommerce
As many countries were locked down, 2020 highlighted the importance of e-commerce. However, even Walmart and Amazon struggled to keep pace with rapid growth.
By 2022, e-commerce will thrive for small businesses. Boutique brands will continue to be the most important trend. Shopify is rapidly becoming the leader in small e-commerce shops, as they are powering many smaller retailers.
Apple Pay, a new payment technology that allows boutique brands to offer 1-click checkout, has allowed them to rival Amazon’s ease and built-in benefits. However, when many are trying to avoid “big tech,” the combination of the growth of social media influencers like Instagram and TikTok has created a storm.
Experts predict that Instagram, TikTok, and other e-commerce platforms will be fully operational by 2022. They will also have integrated affiliate programs. Amazon’s affiliate program has been an enormous success. It allows publications to link products sold on Amazon and create lucrative revenue streams.
These affiliate links are handy during the Christmas holidays. Amazon pays a commission for every product the person purchases within the current cookie period. As you can see, affiliate marketing via social media will be a big trend in small businesses for 2022.
AI and Big Data will drive personalization
If one trend is the dominant theme in 2022, you can count on AI and big data playing a significant role in business decision-making. To help customers become more innovative and efficient, small business CRM tools will continue to invest heavily in AI and big-data analytics.
Small businesses will soon have the same AI capabilities as large businesses in understanding their interactions and helping customers. In addition, they will be able to personalize their offerings across multiple platforms to meet the needs of each customer for boutique retailers.
This will lead to the main risk of privacy regulations like GDPR being introduced into other countries in the coming years. Small businesses will have to find expertise to ensure their web properties are compliant if this happens.
Conclusion
We see Small Business Trends 2022 emerging as small businesses plan for 2022. First, many small companies will continue looking at remote work to expand their talent pool. Second, small businesses will continue to value cloud-based services as e-commerce plays a crucial role in their business.
Third, because small businesses don’t have the resources or expertise to create and manage large IT infrastructures, they can contract with third-party service providers to help them compete with larger companies.
Finally, small businesses can compete with e-commerce giants like Apple Pay or Google Pay by using simplified checkout processes such as Google Pay and Apple Pay.
