1. Green IT

The term refers to the concept of keeping the world’s increasing demand for energy under control through digital devices with a focus on environmentally friendly and energy-efficient solutions. All aspects surrounding information technology rely on resources, materials and energy. Energy-hungry data centers in particular are responsible for high CO2 emissions in some cases. Capgemini’s “Sustainable IT – Why its time for a Green revolution for your organizations IT” report reveals that 53.6 million tons of e-waste was produced in 2019 – a 21% increase over the past 5 years. 89% of all companies surveyed recycle less than 10% of their IT hardware. In particular, climate change and the huge media response to environmental movements such as Fridays for Future have brought sustainability in business into the focus of politics and the public and are making companies make Green IT part of their strategy in 2022.

 

2. IOT growth in enterprises

The number of companies implementing IoT projects will continue to rise in 2022. According to the “IDG Study Internet of Things 2021” by COMPUTERWOCHE and Telefonica Germany, 51% of the 411 decision-makers surveyed from the D-A-CH region in 2021 are already implementing IoT projects in their companies. In particular, companies are focusing on cloud services (45%), AI (37%), and analytics / bigdata (35%) to optimize business processes by using IoT data. 2022, companies are relying on collaboration with partners. IoT solutions unleash their full potential when products and data are connected beyond the enterprise to external business partners. A shared ecosystem with other companies in the future will contribute to competitiveness in the near future. For 57% of respondents, additional investment in IoT projects is occurring to a very strong degree – despite or because of Corona.

 

3. ERP 3.0

Together with IOT, ERP 2.0 software applications connect machines, plants and tools into an increasingly autonomous overall system. Based on the collected data, processes within the company and across the entire value chain are improved and made more efficient. In 2019 and 2020, the demand for ERP 2.0 solutions showed a downward trend, as the first ERP 3.0 providers are placing their solutions due to technological progress in the area of cloud computing and are gaining in popularity. ERP-3.0 is characterized by its consistent focus on web technologies, which are predominantly provided as SaaS models. Due to the general cloud trend and the associated benefits (we reported in part 1) especially in the last 2 years, on-premise ERP solutions are slowly evolving into cloud ERP solutions. Most of the development work has been shifted from ERP vendors to the cloud world. However, among the many cloud benefits, there is one important difference that is crucial for many companies: cloud ERP solutions cannot be customized to the individual needs of the company, or only to a limited extent. Anyone who has used an on-premise ERP system themselves can confirm in most cases that it took several months or even years to adapt the ERP solution to their own company’s needs. Proponents of cloud ERP systems argue with cross-industry standards and reduction of IT costs.