2023 Predictions

Predictions are fun to write and must always be taken with a grain of salt; even so, they always look much more authoritative and impressive when put into the chart form. So we did that. For analysts, predictions are, on the one hand, statements of fact. We don’t foretell the future; our work informs us in advance of where things are heading, so the predictions listed here are accurate enough, but how much impact they will have in 2023 is, to be quite honest, guesswork. The economy is all over the place, tech firms are laying off thousands, it’s a (hopefully) post-pandemic era, and there is a war in Ukraine. In short, so many factors and dynamics mean putting a rigid timeline on these predictions is much harder than it was in years past. So with those provisos and disclaimers out of the way, here we go!

1: The Rise of Knowledge Graphs

Knowledge Graphs (Graph Databases) will have their day in the sun in 2023, the ability to visualize and populate a KG with sophisticated relationships between data, people, and the content will become a key component in Information Management products in 2023.

2: The Shift to Managed Services

Though much of the industry talk is around CX, EX, no code, citizen developers, etc., that masks the reality that providing, running, and maintaining modern applications is incredibly complex work. As more customized and personalized applications and requirements emerge, we will see this shift to managed services as most enterprises don’t have the time, skills, or resources to manage the complexity.

3: Long-Form Document Understanding

The vast majority of IDP deployments today focus on processing short-form documents such as invoices, receipts, forms, etc., typically with one to four pages. But we are witnessing a swift evolution to long-form document understanding, led by the contract lifecycle management and mortgage loan origination sectors. Be that from innovative startups such as Cortical.io, Docugami, Eigen Technologies, and Infrrd, or the giants such as Microsoft Syntex and Oracle OCI, 2023 could be the year this moves out of the fringes to center stage. 

4: From Mining to Monitoring

Process & Task Mining has spent a year or two in the sun, but their use to kick-start projects will extend into continuous improvement and monitoring of work activities.  It’s a cliché, but business analysis seldom reveals what we expect it to reveal. The granular level of visibility that mining tools provide typically reveals a chaotic horror show rather than the somewhat orderly work an enterprise expects to find running in their organizations.

5: A record-breaking PE deal

At the top end of the Information & Automation Management market, private equity firms hold sway. But the goal of PE’s is to flip those investments, and we expect one major multi-billion exit in 2023, though most likely a flip from one PE to another. 

6: Heavy losses for – and potentially the sale of – older vendors

A pandemic followed by a recession has meant growth for many vendors in our sector, as they promise the ability to do more with less. But some of the older vendors in our sector are struggling to maintain that growth, and layoffs have already begun.. And if a faltering global economy wasn’t enough pressure, add to that the brutal competition they face for new sales from startups who have raised eye-watering sums. In 2023, more than a few vendors will likely be forced to sell at valuations less than expected.

7: Ramp up of Series A & B funding for startups

At the tail end of 2022, we have already seen VC money being unlocked for Information and Automation Management startups. Though seed funding will still be hard to secure, startups showing growth and a solid path to profitability will close substantial A & B rounds in 2023.

8: Move over ERP

If the pandemic taught the world of enterprise software one thing, it was that legacy, complex and expensive ERP systems are not adaptable to sudden change. Though ERP systems won’t go away, cheaper, lighter-weight, more adaptable, middleware-centric options will take center stage, and organizations will start to actively explore the slow journey to disentangling themselves from a reliance on monolithic tech.

9: Human Intelligence

If IBM et al. were to be believed, everything would be running with AI today, but though AI is used extensively in the enterprise, its shortcomings and challenges have quickly become apparent. Rather than simply checking a box by saying ‘Human in the Loop’, human intelligence and its involvement in complex decision-making, supported and augmented by AI where appropriate, will become a major theme in enterprise tech.

10: Government, Legal Sector & Blockchain

Blockchain has been gaining traction in both Government and the Financial sector globally, albeit to a much lesser degree in the USA. That traction will start to filter down to the legal industry in 2023. We don’t expect radical adoption, but the benefits (and indeed drawbacks) of immutability will start to become an essential and common topic of discussion and exploration in the coming year.

What won’t happen in 2023

• • Enterprise use of the Metaverse.
• • Businesses flocking to spend money on Twitter
• • Order to the chaos

If you are a buyer of enterprise software, we have a free – yup, free – confidential advisory service for you. A service that means all you have to do is find a time on our calendar.

Likewise, If you run an enterprise technology software business. Again feel free to reach out and chat with us, as we may be able to help by providing some critical but constructive advice and support.