Business Trends That Will Change Your Life in 2023

Fasten your seat belt. Five key business trends for the new year are advancing the scope and pace of change. According to the internationally influential author, business tech advisor, and futurist Bernard Marr, the turbulence businesses have encountered over the past few years shows no sign of diminishing in 2023.

The negative impacts of Russia's invasion of Ukraine are rapidly multiplying at a time when companies are already struggling to surmount economic challenges brought on by the COVID-19 pandemic. However, digital technologies are accelerating solutions and response times to negative impacts such as market volatility, supply chain disruption, remote workplace accessibility, and labor shortages.¹

All indications point to an exciting year of life-changing evolution in technologies and business practices. Read on to discover what's in store for you as five important business trends begin making their impact on your daily life.

Taken individually, the following business trends represent diverse changes in specific ways of working as organizations, teams, individual employees, and societies in general. However, you'll quickly notice that these business trends also interact in many ways. Taken as a whole, these five business trends of 2023 represent a fascinating synergy—a power that is significantly greater than the sum of its parts.^{1, 2}

Advancements in digital technologies are accelerating the pace of transformation across industries and the globe. Innovations going mainstream in 2023 offer greater connectivity between humans and machines, advanced analytics, lighting-fast networking, and immersive or augmented experiences for all forms of commerce and entertainment. The technologies supporting these transformations include:

• Advanced machine learning (ML) protocols
• Artificial intelligence
• The internet of things (IoT)
• Blockchain data security
• Cloud computing
• 5G networks
• Wearable devices

As businesses embrace digitization and adapt to new realities, the scope of change now extends well beyond the Information Technology (IT) Department and the purview of the chief information officer.

Adapting to the new digital workplace is an organization-wide imperative that affects everyone, from C-suite executives to frontline personnel. Business models, methods and processes, goals and decision-making, agility and resilience, workplace skills and cultures, investor and customer relations, and corporate philosophies are evolving. ^{1, 3, 4}

New digital technologies are enhancing visibility from product development to marketplace distribution. Waste, inefficiencies, and risks are now identifiable, measurable, and avoidable. Data-driven analytics optimize decision-making processes across the spectrum of business operations, but taming supply-chain disruption is among the primary business trends for organizations adopting AI-based solutions.¹

For example, real-time mapping of supply chains helps identify supply and logistical bottlenecks; advanced analytics and insights facilitate contingency planning, and automating contract management systems substantially reduces supply-chain disruption. These solutions help us all by deflating inflation's impacts on the price of doing business and, ultimately, on product prices in the market.^{1, 5}

Forecasters predict that climate change impacts will far outweigh the pandemic's effects. Business analysts confirm that consumer spending indicates rising eco-anxiety. From business investors and leaders to employees and consumers, calls for improving sustainability are growing. More businesses are prioritizing corporate social responsibility (CSR) and making environmental, social and governance (ESG) improvements.^{1, 4, 6}

Business trends indicate greater organizational ESG transparency, reporting, and accountability in 2023, conveniently converging with advanced IoT-based operational technology (OT) for cost-effective solutions. IoT-based OT—to include tracking, measuring, enforcing, and even financially incentivizing ESG goals—will see a huge surge in popularity.^{1, 7, 8}

Among the more exciting business trends of 2023 is the convergence of "experience," i.e., Customer (CX), User (UX), Employee (EX) and Multi-device Experience (MX) into Total Experience (TX), as businesses prepare for the eagerly awaited metaverse. Predicting a reality-bending future of unlimited interactivity in shared 3D-immersive environments, metaverse proponents envision a mind-blowing expansion of the internet experience.^{1, 4, 9, 10}

Although major tech players are briskly competing to deploy metaverse-1, achieving the levels of interaction imagined in the sci-fi film Ready Player One is hardly imminent. Nevertheless, early metaverse efforts are affecting business trends and models. Tech-savvy business leaders are tapping into the synergy of TX generated by converging our experiences as users, customers, employees, businesses, investors, organizations, groups, and societies. In 2023, many more chief experience officers (CXOs) will join the C-suite, ensuring that TX will become a foundational business strategy going forward.^{1, 9, 10, 11}

As we've seen, digital transformation is a driving force behind the business trends above. Likewise, in 2023, future-proofing workers' skills is a pressing need as businesses adopt digital technologies. Businesses increasingly relying on AI-based machines and technologies must identify and fill skills gaps in the workforce via upskilling and reskilling programs. And while current employees need new skills to perform tech-based tasks, employers also need to fill positions vacated by pandemic-related lockdowns, layoffs, and resignations.^{1, 4, 12}

In 2023, we'll see more businesses investing in future-proofing measures, providing appropriate training, supplying necessary resources, promoting flexible work schedules, and fostering progressive work cultures. Irreplaceable human skills and qualities—such as leadership, creativity, interpersonal communication and compassion—will also receive greater emphasis.^{1, 4}

Offering life-changing ways of working and doing business, improvements in employee satisfaction, overall operational success, and organizational sustainability are among the more noteworthy business trends for 2023.

If your goals for the new year include becoming a future-ready business leader, consider the benefits of earning an Online Master's Degree in Business Administration. By tapping into the powerful synergy of Seattle University's top-ranking Albers School of Business and Economics, you'll develop expertise as a tech-savvy business leader without leaving your current place of employment.¹³

Our flexible Online MBA program empowers progressive values-based business skills, offering sustainable career success. Our dynamic network of 81,000 global alumni across Fortune 500 businesses and Seattle-based tech-forward companies places top-quality career advancement at your fingertips. And, with less than half the tuition of other top B-schools, the innovative Albers online programs substantially increase your return on investment and earning potential as a leader dedicated to ethical business success.^{14, 15}

Embrace your future. Contact an Admissions Advisor today.