What’s moving in 2022?

At Harvard, we’re all about helping tech companies to make their move – whether that’s shifting their reputation, launching a new product or disrupting a category.

That means we always need to understand the context of changes in business thinking, consumer behaviour, policy debate and tech development.

Which is why today we’re publishing our Tech Moves 2022 report – our look at some of the key areas where moves are being made and where the tech sector will be affected in the year ahead.

This isn’t meant to be a predictions piece – that’s not the business we’re in. But we are experts at anticipating how the media narrative and public conversation will evolve, so that’s why we’ve focused on five areas that we think are especially pertinent to our clients right now.

These five areas are:

• The New World of Work – covering the disruption and changes to how we all work now;
• Every Business as a Tech Business – the continuing impact of tech on other sectors;
• Responsible Business – the growing ESG agenda, where tech is firmly in the spotlight;
• The Changing Consumer – the ways in which consumer attitudes and behaviour continue to evolve;
• Regulation on the Rise – the regulatory and political debates which will affect how tech companies operate.

Working on this report has been an interesting opportunity to take a step back and reflect. After the seismic upheavals of 2020, the past 12 months might have felt a little less dramatic. To some extent, we’ve got used to life in and out of lockdowns, navigating restrictions and daily disruptions.

But a consistent theme in our report is how the consequences of the pandemic – from new working models to growing regulatory scrutiny – continue to work their way through the tech sector, and almost every aspect of business and society at large.

Tech has been a big winner out of the pandemic, brutal though that may sound. That brings with it many opportunities, but also higher expectations and greater levels of responsibility.

A lot of the next 12 months will be about tech firms managing that balance – capitalising on the enormous investment in and appetite for its products and services, while simultaneously playing a more positive role in society and people’s lives.

While our report can’t cover every interesting aspect of the tech industry (there’s far too much going on to do that!), we think our five themes are very much worth keeping an eye on. We hope this provides some food for thought for comms and marketing teams as they start their planning for 2022.

VIEW THE REPORT HERE