The report positions 2026 as the inflection point where marketing moves decisively from generative AI pilots and proofs of concept to agentic execution at scale.

Drawing on industry research from Gartner, Forrester, McKinsey, Anthropic, HubSpot, and Netcore’s operating insights across global enterprises, the report concludes that consumer agentic marketing in 2026 will be defined by multi-agent systems, Brand Twins, Agentic Commerce, human attention, outcomes-based pricing, and profitability.

Multi-agent systems move from pilots to performance

A core finding of Netcore Agentic Predictions 2026 is the transition from isolated AI assistants to orchestrated multi-agent systems (MAS) that operate across the full marketing lifecycle; content, segmentation, decisioning, optimisation, and insights.

The data points to rapid momentum:

• Multi-agent systems outperform single-agent architectures by 90.2% on complex tasks (Anthropic, 2025)
• 56% of organisations report improved scalability after adopting multi-agent approaches (Forrester, 2025)
• 50% of enterprises say MAS adoption creates competitive differentiation (Gartner, 2025)
• Gartner recorded a 1,445% surge in multi-agent system–related queries between 2024 and 2025

The report notes that specialised agents now operate under an always-on orchestrator, continuously adapting to customer behaviour and business goals in real time.

This replaces fragmented stacks and manual coordination with self-optimising marketing engines.

Brand Twins replace reach with relevance

The report introduces Brand Twins as a defining construct of the consumer agentic era. These are always-on, brand-owned AI agents that deeply understand individual consumers and act on their behalf, moving marketing away from mass outreach toward relevance at scale.

The urgency is driven by attention collapse:

• 73% of consumers skim content, while only 27% engage meaningfully (HubSpot)
• The average human attention span has fallen to 8.25 seconds, lower than a goldfish’s 9 seconds (Samba Recovery)

According to the report, Brand Twins continuously learn consumer intent, preferences, and behaviour, enabling fewer but more relevant interactions. Marketing becomes quieter, more contextual, and increasingly trust-led.

Agentic commerce reaches a tipping point

E-commerce is identified as the first sector to fully feel the impact of agentic AI. Key indicators cited in Netcore Agentic Predictions 2026 include:

• By 2030, AI agents will influence 20% of e-commerce transactions (Gartner)
• By 2028, 33% of organisations will adopt agentic AI
• By 2028, 15% of AI agents will make daily autonomous decisions (Gartner)

The report predicts the emergence of agent-to-agent (A2A) commerce, where brand agents and consumer agents negotiate pricing, promotions, inventory, and recommendations in real time, making commerce dynamic, adaptive, and continuously optimised.

Human attention becomes the ultimate growth moat

As consumers increasingly rely on AI agents to filter choices, the report forecasts a dual-audience reality – humans and AI agents acting in parallel.

This shift elevates attention as the scarcest resource:

• Human attention spans declined from 12 seconds in 2000 to 8 seconds by 2013, and continue to compress
• AI agents act as gatekeepers, screening relevance before humans engage

The report concludes that brands capable of appealing to human emotion and agent logic simultaneously will convert attention into loyalty, customer lifetime value, and long-term growth.

Outcome-based pricing replaces martech sprawl

One of the report’s strongest predictions is a structural reset in how marketing technology is priced and evaluated.

The data highlights widespread inefficiency:

• 55% of marketers are dissatisfied with martech cost versus value (MarTech)
• Martech cost sensitivity rose from 37% in 2023 to 61% in 2024
• 99% of marketers underutilise their martech stack
• 40% cannot measure ROI, and 18% report no clear ROI (SalesManago)
• 47% of leaders cite stack complexity as the barrier to realising value (McKinsey)

The report predicts a shift toward outcome-based pricing, where brands pay for measurable results, conversions, revenue, and customer lifetime value—rather than licenses and usage.

The CMO is redefined

As execution becomes autonomous, leadership accountability moves upstream.

65% of CMOs believe AI will fundamentally change their role within the next two years (Gartner, 2025)

Netcore Agentic Predictions 2026 forecasts the evolution of the CMO into a Chief AI and Chief Profits Officer, responsible for orchestrating AI systems and directly owning growth outcomes.

“2025 was about proving that AI works. 2026 will be about proving that it delivers,” said Rajesh Jain, Founder & MD, Netcore Cloud. “As autonomous agents take over execution, marketing’s real constraint is no longer technology – it’s attention, outcomes, and accountability. Agentic systems fundamentally change the equation by making growth measurable, continuous, and owned. This is not a tooling upgrade; it’s a new operating model for marketing.”

It’s a success story built on the foundations of artificial intelligence (AI), machine learning (ML), and cost-efficiencies.

A transformative technology, it introduces deeper control over security, offers organisations measurable improvements across project and cost management, and provides organisations of all sizes with rapid access to customisable services and resources. It is also a doorway to an ERP implementation that doesn’t fall into the 70%.

This 70% is defined by how many organisations have implemented ERP solutions and failed to see the true value of their original business use cases.

According to Gartner, 25% will fail completely. Legacy ERP platforms are confusing, complex behemoths that are hard to tame and difficult to manage and have left the proverbial bad taste in the business mouth.

Cloud ERP, on the other hand, introduces modular, intelligent ERP solutions customised to fit within the organisation.

The business isn’t wrapped around the technology – the technology slides into the gaps and enhances systems and delivers the improvements that budgets expected. However, there are several important steps between opting into cloud ERP and seeing the value.

The first is understanding the need. 

For most companies, it’s security and not becoming one of the organisations contributing to the $10.5 trillion bill that global cybercrime will demand in 2025.

Cloud ERP solutions provide significantly better security than on-premise and offer more rigorous controls over data security, regulatory compliance, and other tools such as encryption and multi-factor authentication.

Built in the cloud, the platform has exceptional failover and disaster recovery capabilities that reduce downtime and risk.

Another core need is more efficient data management and storage. ERP platforms often fail because the company has too much data and users aren’t able to optimise access and insights for improved decision-making.

Data volumes are only going to increase exponentially which makes it essential to have the right storage, processing power, analytics and capabilities.

For the on-premise system, this means that the company has to keep on throwing hardware at the problem which increases the costs and reduces return on investment (ROI).

Cloud offers flexibility and scale at an optimised price point which makes it easy to adapt to changing data volumes and requirements.

That said, adapting to the growing volumes of data isn’t just reliant on the systems that hold it in place, companies also need to have tools that allow them to leverage the data.

Cloud-based ERP does make it easier to introduce AI tools that run and compute on that data. Yes, AI is still sitting in the hype cycle which makes it both a compelling value add and a concern, but as the technology matures, cloud-based ERP simplifies integration and use cases so your business isn’t left behind.

Which takes the conversation to the third need – upgrades. Nobody wants to spend a sizeable portion of the budget on an ERP that will drag its heels in the technology dust in a few years.

Continuous upgrades are essential to ensuring the system has the business functionality, processing power, tools and compute; capable of handling whatever new technology or requirement emerges in the future.

This is relatively effortless in the cloud – security, system and capability upgrades are essentially evergreen with limited downtime and rapid access to next-generation solutions.

The fact that the business is now always up to date versus battling with “dated” on-premise delays eliminates wastage when it comes to deriving value from the latest features and time lost in deriving value from technology investments.

Cloud is the ERP duster buster that makes keeping up with the digital Jones’ quick and effective. An on-premises solution for example, will require annual license fees, and technology upgrades every 18 months and has a high total cost of ownership (TCO) without even considering the risks of downtime, power demands and more. Never mind the loss of value derived in the 18-month intervals between upgrades.

Once you have selected an Implementation partner, with a proven track record and specialised expertise in understanding your business and cloud-based ERP solutions, implementation will be relevant and aligned with ROI and speed of deployment.

Cloud can slip into the business rapidly – it doesn’t take months to integrate and plan – and it’s permanently up to date.

Everything from the network to the databases to the security to the hardware is effortlessly maintained and managed.  Getting there requires a partner that knows how to sidestep the errors and meet the needs.

The recent Africa MSME Pulse 2024 Survey reveals historic lows in business confidence across key markets such as South Africa, Nigeria, Ethiopia, and Kenya.

In an attempt to save costs, many small business owners are reducing marketing budgets. This decision may seem practical in the short term, but it could stifle growth and weaken customer connections over time.

Now, more than ever, digital marketing stands out as a lifeline for small businesses. Enhanced by artificial intelligence (AI), digital marketing enables businesses to survive and thrive by reaching their audiences through online channels such as social media, search engines, and email.

With AI automating tasks and providing real-time insights, small businesses can maximize their resources, optimize campaigns, and deliver faster, smarter results.

Here’s why digital marketing, when paired with AI, is an essential strategy for African small businesses:

1. It’s Cost-Effective and Data-Driven

For businesses operating on tight budgets, digital marketing provides a more affordable and efficient alternative to traditional advertising.

Digital campaigns allow businesses to target specific audiences, ensuring every marketing dollar is spent wisely.

Additionally, AI-powered analytics offer precise performance measurement, enabling small businesses to focus on strategies that deliver the greatest return on investment.

2. It’s Flexible and Adaptable

In uncertain times, adaptability is key. Digital marketing allows businesses to pivot strategies quickly in response to market changes and customer needs.

With real-time data insights, businesses can refine their campaigns to stay aligned with trends and customer preferences, ensuring they remain competitive in an ever-changing landscape.

3. It Leverages the Power of AI

AI is revolutionizing how small businesses operate. By automating tasks like content creation, ad management, and campaign optimization, AI enhances a team’s capacity without increasing overhead costs. For example, AI can help small businesses A/B test ad creatives, adjust targeting, or predict customer behaviour, all in real time.

This gives small businesses a significant advantage, allowing them to compete with larger companies by working smarter, not harder.

4. It Builds Strong Customer Relationships

A strong digital presence is about more than visibility; it’s about fostering meaningful customer connections.

Social media and personalized email campaigns allow small businesses to engage with their customers directly, creating loyalty and a sense of community.

During tough economic times, these authentic relationships can make all the difference, as loyal customers are more likely to stick with a brand they trust.

5. It Expands Reach Beyond Borders

Digital marketing offers the unique ability to connect with audiences beyond local markets. African small businesses can now reach customers in other cities, regions, or even countries, unlocking new revenue streams and reducing reliance on a single market. This expanded reach provides a pathway to sustainable growth, even in uncertain economic times.

Creating a Resilient Digital Strategy

As more African businesses turn to digital tools to address economic challenges, the adoption of AI-powered digital marketing is becoming a game-changer.

Gartner’s “Future of Sales” report predicts that by 2025, 80% of B2B sales will take place online, underlining the need for a robust digital presence. For African small businesses, success lies in tailoring their marketing strategies to their audience’s unique cultural and regional needs while embracing the opportunities digital tools provide.

1. Use AI and Data Effectively

Small businesses can harness AI tools to automate tasks, streamline content creation, and analyze market trends. Responsible collection and use of first-party data also allow businesses to personalize customer experiences, create tailored offers, and build loyalty.

2. Reflect and Refine Constantly

Digital marketing is not a “set it and forget it” strategy. Businesses must track campaign performance, identify areas for improvement, and refine their approach.

A/B testing email subject lines, ad creatives, or website designs can help small businesses discover what resonates most with their audience.

Transforming Challenges into Opportunities

The Africa MSME Pulse 2024 Survey highlights a growing trend: small businesses are embracing digital tools to overcome economic challenges. By adopting resilient, flexible digital marketing strategies, African small businesses can transform these challenges into opportunities for innovation and growth.

In an increasingly connected world, a strong digital marketing strategy is not just a tool for survival; it is a pathway to resilience and success.

By leveraging AI, building customer relationships, and expanding their reach, small businesses across Africa can not only survive turbulent times but thrive.

As a result, Gartner predicts 40% of existing AI data centers will be operationally constrained by power availability by 2027.

“The explosive growth of new hyperscale data centers to implement GenAI is creating an insatiable demand for power that will exceed the ability of utility providers to expand their capacity fast enough,” said Bob Johnson, VP Analyst at Gartner. “In turn, this threatens to disrupt energy availability and lead to shortages, which will limit the growth of new data centers for GenAI and other uses from 2026.”

Gartner estimates the power required for data centers to run incremental AI-optimized servers will reach 500 terawatt-hours (TWh) per year in 2027, which is 2.6 times the level in 2023 (see Figure 1).

Figure 1: Estimated Incremental Power Consumption of AI Data Centers, 2022-2027

“New larger data centers are being planned to handle the huge amounts of data needed to train and implement the rapidly expanding large language models (LLMs) that underpin GenAI applications,” said Johnson. “However, short-term power shortages are likely to continue for years as new power transmission, distribution and generation capacity could take years to come online and won’t alleviate current problems.”

In the near future, the number of new data centers and the growth of GenAI will be governed by the availability of power to run them. Gartner recommends organizations determine the risks potential power shortages will have on all products and services.

Electricity Prices Will Increase

The inevitable result of impending power shortages is an increase in the price of power, which will also increase the costs of operating LLMs, according to Gartner.

“Significant power users are working with major producers to secure long-term guaranteed sources of power independent of other grid demands,” said Johnson. “In the meantime, the cost of power to operate data centers will increase significantly as operators use economic leverage to secure needed power. These costs will be passed on to AI/GenAI product and service providers as well.”

Gartner recommends organizations evaluate future plans anticipating higher power costs and negotiate long-term contracts for data center services at reasonable rates for power.

Organizations should also factor significant cost increases when developing plans for new products and services, while also looking for alternative approaches that require less power.

Sustainability Goals Will Suffer

Zero-carbon sustainability goals will also be negatively affected by short-term solutions to provide more power, as surging demand is forcing suppliers to increase production by any means possible.

In some cases, this means keeping fossil fuel plants that had been scheduled for retirement in operation beyond their scheduled shutdown.

“The reality is that increased data center use will lead to increased CO2 emissions to generate the needed power in the short-term,” said Johnson. “This, in turn, will make it more difficult for data center operators and their customers to meet aggressive sustainability goals relating to CO2 emissions.”

Data centers require 24/7 power availability, which renewable power such as wind or solar cannot provide without some form of alternative supply during periods when not generating power, according to Gartner.

Ike Nnamani says Data Centres’ll Run into Trouble in Nigeria…if

Reliable 24/7 power can only be generated by either hydroelectric, fossil fuel or nuclear power plants. In the long-term, new technologies for improved battery storage (e.g sodium ion batteries) or clean power (e.g small nuclear reactors) will become available and help achieve sustainability goals.

Gartner recommends organizations re-evaluate sustainability goals relating to CO2 emissions in light of future data center requirements and power sources for the next few years.

When developing GenAI applications, they should focus on using a minimum amount of computing power and look at the viability of other options such as edge computing and smaller language models.

[Featured Image Credit]

Infobip has been recognised for its Ability to Execute and Completeness of Vision^.

The Gartner report Top 10 Trends in Enterprise Communication Services 2024 notes the growth of GenAI as “The year 2023 saw the rise of generative AI (GenAI) as a major disruptor impacting almost all technology areas”.

The Gartner CIO and Technology Executive Survey identifies customer experience, improving margins, revenue growth, ensuring compliance/minimising risk, and increasing employee effectiveness as the top critical outcomes expected from enterprise digital technology investments.

Infobip has invested in its AI Hub for AI-driven conversational customer experiences that solve business problems.

The firm was also among the first globally to launch Camara-compliant Network APIs under the GSMA Open Gateway initiative.

Silvio Kutić, CEO at Infobip, said:

“As Gartner explains, “businesses prioritise business outcomes, buying experiences, and cloud consumption models when buying communications services.” That’s why we are innovating across all layers of the tech stack to enable businesses to digitally transform their interactions with customers. As the CPaaS market continues to grow, Infobip remains the full-stack omnichannel communications platform for every platform.”

This article explores how organizations can systematically identify, quantify, and prioritize cybersecurity debt in cloud-native environments—including microservices, containers, and serverless architectures—to prevent catastrophic breaches.

We outline a practical framework drawing on industry best practices (AWS Well-Architected, Gartner, CNCF), demonstrate thought leadership through real-world examples and emerging techniques, and highlight the essential role of mentorship in fostering a security-first culture.

1. Introduction: The Hidden Cost of Speed

Cloud-native development—characterized by microservices, containerization, and serverless functions—delivers unprecedented agility and scale.

Yet, in the rush to innovate, many teams accrue cybersecurity debt: insecure shortcuts and implicit assumptions that “work” today but erode resilience tomorrow.

This debt lurks in misconfigurations, excessive privileges, hard-coded secrets, and gaps in procedural controls.

Left unchecked, it can ignite as a high-impact breach or compliance failure, making early detection and disciplined repayment essential.

2. Defining Cybersecurity Debt

Cybersecurity debt parallels technical debt but focuses on security compromises that require future remediation.

Where technical debt might be sloppy code or architectural shortcuts, security debt reflects deferred hardening—for example, bypassing multi-factor authentication to expedite deployment or ignoring container image vulnerabilities because they “haven’t caused issues yet”.

Unlike code debt, security debt carries direct risk: each deferred control is an open-door awaiting exploitation.

3. Why Cloud-Native Amplifies Risk

Cloud-native environments deepen the challenge:

• Ephemeral infrastructure: Containers and serverless instances vanish and reappear, making drift and misconfiguration hard to track.
• Distributed responsibility: Dev, Sec, and Ops teams share ownership, blurring accountability for security decisions.
• Automated pipelines: CI/CD accelerates delivery but can bake in insecure defaults without gating and inspection.

These factors mean that assumptions—“we patched that image last week,” or “this role is internal only”—become liabilities as infrastructure shifts.

4. Identifying Cybersecurity Debt

4.1 Hands-On Trace Reviews

Scan-and-dash approaches miss context. True identification requires trace reviews: mapping the decisions that led to each configuration. For example:

• Tracking why secrets were hard-coded instead of using a dynamic vault.
• Examining whether elevated Kubernetes role bindings once enabled a feature flag but never revoked.
• Reviewing why containers run as root when non-privileged alternatives exist.

4.2 Continuous Threat Modeling

Embedding cloud-native threat modeling into the SDLC uncovers hidden paths to compromise. By decomposing services, data flows, and trust boundaries repeatedly—especially after architectural changes—teams reveal debt hidden in “known working” components.

4.3 Automated and Manual Scanning

Combine automated tools (SAST/DAST, IaC scanners) with manual pen-testing to capture both common misconfigurations and nuanced risks. While tools flag out-of-date dependencies or open ports, skilled reviewers decode whether a flagged issue actually matters in context.

5. Quantifying Security Debt

Effective management requires measuring debt in business-aligned terms, not just CVSS scores.

5.1 Risk Registries and Scoring

Maintain a risk registry that logs each debt item with:

• Technical severity (e.g., OWASP Top 10 rating).
• Exploitability (public exposure, attacker tools).
• Business impact (data sensitivity, regulatory fines, downtime cost).

Use a weighted scoring model—mixing severity, likelihood, and impact—to derive a debt score that reflects true organizational risk.

5.2 Financial Analogy: “Debt Interest”

Estimate the “interest” each debt item accrues over time—e.g., cost of incident response, legal fees, or brand damage if exploited. This frames security as a continuous investment, not a one-off checkbox.

6. Prioritizing Debt Remediation

With hundreds of weaknesses possible, teams must be brutally realistic about what to fix first.

6.1 Risk-Based Triage

Segment debt into tiers:

1. Critical: Publicly exposed workloads, encryption gaps, or identity misconfigurations.
2. High: Internal services with sensitive data or highly privileged roles.
3. Medium/Low: Low-impact configurations or out-of-scope development tools.

Align remediation sprints to clear critical debt swiftly, while scheduling periodic reviews for lower tiers.

6.2 Error Budgets and SRE Principles

Borrowing from SRE, allocate an error budget for acceptable risk—balancing innovation velocity and security hardening .. When debt exceeds the budget, freeze new features until the balance is restored.

7. Embedding Security as a Partner, Not a Gatekeeper

7.1 DevSecOps Culture

Adopt DevSecOps to integrate security early and collaboratively. When security teams act as advisors—providing guardrails, automated checks, and coaching—they help developers steer clear of debt rather than policing them after the fact.

7.2 Explainable Security Controls

Implement explainable logic in policy engines and alerting so that developers understand not only what failed but why—and how to fix it. Transparency accelerates remediation and builds trust.

8. Thought Leadership and Mentorship in Practice

Breaking the debt cycle demands more than tools; it requires leaders who mentor and educate.

• Workshops & Hackathons: Host hands-on labs where teams detect and remediate seeded security debt, reinforcing best practices in a safe sandbox.
• Peer Coaching: Pair senior engineers with newer team members to review IaC templates and threat models together, fostering knowledge transfer and collective ownership.
• Open-Source Contributions: Publish reusable debt-assessment frameworks and scoring scripts under permissive licenses, inviting cross-industry collaboration and continuous improvement.

By sharing expertise and creating learning pathways, mentors amplify impact—empowering organizations to shift from reactive firefighting to proactive resilience.

9. Continuous Improvement: The Road Ahead

Cybersecurity debt is never “paid off”—it evolves with new architectures and threat vectors. Leading teams implement feedback loops:

1. Post-Incident Reviews: Analyze breaches or near-misses to identify overlooked debt items.
2. Automated Drift Detection: Alert on configuration changes that reintroduce debt.
3. Analyst Feedback Integration: Adjust debt scoring based on field experience to refine prioritization.

Emerging trends—like integrating reinforcement learning into correlation engines or leveraging blockchain-based audit trails for immutable policy enforcement—promise to further advance cloud-native resilience.

10. Conclusion

Cloud-native speed need not be bought at the expense of security. By identifying hidden compromises, quantifying their true business impact, and prioritizing remediation with rigor and partnership, organizations can convert cybersecurity debt from a ticking time bomb into a managed asset.

Thought leaders who pair technical innovation with active mentorship catalyze sector-wide advancement—shaping a future where resilience is baked in, and every team shares responsibility for lasting digital transformation.

*Abiola Olomola is an accomplished Cyber Security leader based in Dubai, UAE, with 2 decades of experience. She spearheads the development and implementation of robust IT frameworks that align technology strategies with business objectives while mitigating cybersecurity and operational risks. Her expertise spans strategic IT governance, cloud security, AI risk management, and regulatory compliance with standards such as ISO 27001, NIST, GDPR, and PCI DSS.

Her innovative approach and strategic leadership have earned her numerous prestigious awards, including the Most Strategic IT Leader of the Year Award from Middle East Gen AI & Analytics Awards, the Leader in IT Governance, Risk & Compliance Award from Global Women Leadership Awards, and recognition as one of the Top 5 Remarkable Women Making an Impact by CIO Today. She has also been acknowledged by The CXO Time, Empire Magazine, and Impact Leadership Awards for her transformative contributions in IT.

Abiola holds a Master of Science in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Science in Computer Engineering. As an active member of IEEE, ISACA, EC-Council, and PMI, she continues to drive organizational excellence and inspire industry-wide advancements in IT GRC and Cyber Security.

A Gartner survey of 2,080 knowledge worker employees from May through June 2023 measured the impact of mandated requirements on employee outcomes among various employee categories.

Intent to stay among average employees was 8% lower with strict RTO mandates.

Among high-performing employees, their intent to stay was 16% lower with these RTO mandates, double the rate of average employees. Among millennials and women, the intent to stay was 10% and 11% lower (see Figure 1).

“Mandated on-site requirements can carry very steep costs for talent attraction and retention.

This is especially true for high-performers, women and millennials – three employee segments who greatly value flexibility,” said Caitlin Duffy, Director in the Gartner HR practice. “Often these costs far outweigh the moderate benefits to employee engagement and effort.”

A September 2023 Gartner survey of 170 HR leaders found that 63% of HR leaders report an increased expectation around employees spending days in the office.

Despite this increased in-person expectation, a June 2023 Gartner survey of nearly 3,500 employees, revealed that 48% of employees say their company’s mandates prioritize what leaders want versus what employees need to do good work.

While in-person collaboration can yield moderate benefits, such as increased employee engagement, organizations are finding it challenging to get employees to return to the office more frequently.

Some HR leaders have been met with low compliance after encouraging employees to spend more time in the office, causing them to resort to stricter RTO mandates.

Impact on High-Performing Employees

High-performers often react to RTO mandates as a signal that their organization doesn’t trust them with the autonomy to make the best choices about how they get their work done.

Many of these employees feel that they have proven themselves and maintained high levels of performance throughout the pandemic and remote working.

“High-performing employees are more easily able to pursue opportunities at organizations that offer hybrid or fully remote policies,” said Duffy. “Losing high-performers to attrition cost organizations in terms of productivity, difficulty in backfilling the role, and the overall loss of high-quality talent available to fill critical positions.”

Impact on Female Employees

Throughout the pandemic, increased flexibility and the ability to work from home positively impacted women’s ability to manage work and life priorities in a holistic, integrated way. Beyond flexibility, female employees report they prefer remote settings due to fewer encounters with microaggressions and biases, as compared to when working in an office.

When organizations mandate rigid in-office times and days, women disproportionately face greater schedule complications and significant monetary costs related to caregiving responsibilities.

Impact on Millennial Employees

At this time, millennials are the generation most likely to have caregiving responsibilities and therefore benefit the most from added flexibility. Though going into the office can be beneficial for millennials – offering focus time away from potential distractions at home – Gartner data revealed that millennial employees’ performance was lower at organizations with RTO mandates.

With more experience than their Gen Z counterparts, millennials chafe more at RTO mandates as they have a better understanding of what environment supports their work best, yet are less able to customize their environments when forced to operate within rigid on-site requirements.

Designing a Successful RTO Policy

To prevent employee attrition, HR leaders should avoid rigid RTO mandates and instead seek to implement RTO strategies that maximize talent and business outcomes.

Gartner has identified four best practices HR leaders should consider if their organizations seek to formalize in-office work requirements:

1. Motivate employees to return to the office rather than mandate. Organizations can motivate employees to come to the office by designing their office space and hybrid policies to make employees feel capable, autonomous, and connected.
2. Consider policies that focus on-site attendance per year, not per week. Gartner research found that organizations mandating a minimum number of in-office days per year achieve greater employee performance than those mandating a minimum number of in-person days per week.
3. Enable employees to shape the RTO policy. Employees who contributed to their teams’ hybrid work arrangements and felt like their needs were considered demonstrated both higher engagement and work performance.
4. Provide a clear reason behind requirements for working on-site. Organizations that transparently communicated their reasons for wanting employees to come into the office saw positive impacts on engagement, discretionary effort and retention.

Speaking with business leaders across the region, several common themes have emerged. From the urgent need to build greater resilience and reduce risk, to leveraging the power of AI and improving sustainability efforts while ensuring that investments drive value both now, and in the future – these are the interconnected trends that European business leaders will confront in 2024:

Trend 1: De-risking the enterprise

In an environment defined by volatility and geopolitical uncertainty, business leaders face increased risk across their operations.

This is driving an acute need for operational and technological interventions to reduce risk and bring stability to the enterprise, while still safeguarding agility.

Europe’s regulatory landscape is becoming increasingly complex as policymakers try to keep pace with the disruptive impact of technology.

The new Artificial Intelligence Act, for example, will establish strict rules and standards around the development and application of AI in business contexts.

This includes guardrails for general purpose AI; a total ban on AI as it relates to citizens’ rights and democratic processes; and the right for consumers to launch complaints and demand meaningful explanations regarding decisions based on AI systems.

In addition, a wave of new regulations in trade and customs throughout the region will add compliance pressure on companies already reeling from ongoing challenges related to various elements of their supply chains.

From 1 January this year, companies wishing to do business in Europe are subject to the EU Emissions Trading System that aims to establish Europe as the first climate-neutral continent; a truly admirable objective.

All this complexity requires extensive investment in sophisticated digital tools to provide greater visibility over the climate impact of the end-to-end supply chain, which brings me to my next point:

Trend 2: Supply chain resilience is not the same as agility 

As if the continued ripple effects of the pandemic on global supply chains didn’t pose enough of a challenge over the last couple of years, business leaders have also had to contend with the ongoing geopolitical conflict.

Be it re-routing of ships to avoid the Suez Canal, high-tech component shortages, or commodity price volatility on everything from food to energy – these factors, among others, create immense supply chain instability.

In response, forward-looking companies are seeking greater agility to respond to supply chain threats. A recent S&P Global report highlights the importance of technology in maximizing organizations’ chances at success with maintaining stable supply chains.

One of the key objectives of digital transformation within supply chains is the ability to improve end-to-end visibility.

However, a KPMG study found that 43% of global organizations have limited to no visibility over the performance of their tier one suppliers – an astounding statistic.

Greater visibility over supply chain processes clearly also supports wider sustainability efforts. The same KPMG study found that only 5% of supply chain emissions stem from direct manufacturing; emissions from the broader supply chain are five to ten times greater.

Digital platforms can significantly improve enterprises’ ability to collect emission data and set appropriate targets for key suppliers to collectively drive improved sustainability outcomes throughout the supply chain.

In addition, organizations will increasingly leverage the power of AI to improve supply chain management, logistics, and procurement. In fact, half of supply chain organizations are expected to invest in applications that support AI and advanced analytics capabilities in the year ahead.

Trend 3: Unlocking AI’s true business value

On the topic of AI, the year ahead will undoubtedly see more companies leverage Generative AI and AI for business to drive innovation, efficiency, and productivity.

Unsurprisingly, Gartner has predicted that Trust, Risk and Security Management in AI Models will be one of the leading tech themes for the year ahead, built on advances in model monitoring, AI application security, and privacy.

However, European businesses may be more hesitant to unleash AI on their operations. A recent PwC study found that business leaders in EMEA are far less convinced that their customers prefer to interact with AI models than their North American peers.

And considering the EU legislation already mentioned, European companies looking to incorporate AI in their business models or operating environments will need to build their use case with both compliance and privacy front and centre.

However, companies can unquestionably accelerate the value from their AI deployments by leveraging AI that is purpose built for business. Large cloud and software providers, like SAP, have invested significantly in building responsible AI into their core products. This means that customers can immediately benefit and unlock business value from their software investments.

2024 will be a pivotal year for many business leaders across EMEA – while daunting in many respects, also an incredibly exciting time to lead.

“We have seen several shifts affecting the workplace, including the emergence of generative AI (GenAI), pilots around establishing a four-day workweek, and changes to traditional careers,” said Emily Rose McRae, Senior Director Analyst in the Gartner HR practice. “This year’s predictions highlight the aspects of work that HR leaders must prioritize over the next 12 months.”

The top nine predictions for HR leaders are:

1. The Cost-of-Work Crisis Reaches a Breaking Point

Employees who have been working remotely or in a hybrid environment have experienced what it is to work without bearing the costs – financial, time and energy – associated with going into an office daily.

As many employers implement a mandate for remote employees to return to the office after long periods of remote work, employees now have a sharper awareness of what they “spend” to go to work.

In 2024, organizations looking to attract and retain talent will not just try to find the perfect hybrid strategy, but they will look to tackle the cost of work head-on via two strategies: by sharing the tangible and intangible costs of returning to the office or by finding ways to reduce the total costs.

This may include things such as: caregiving benefits, housing subsidies, financial well-being programs, or the ability for associates to bring their pets to work.

2. AI Creates, Not Diminishes, Workforce Opportunity

Despite anxiety and significant discussion around how GenAI will impact jobs, in the short- to medium-term, generative AI will fully replace few jobs.

GenAI will lower the level of technical skills needed for many roles, widely increasing the roles for which candidates can qualify.

Many jobs heavily impacted by GenAI will be redesigned and will have new responsibilities that include interacting with GenAI tools.

This year, leaders should partner with HR to assess how GenAI investments should change their teams’ roles and workflows, and how to identify potential internal candidates for newly redesigned roles. HR must also evaluate the impact on hiring strategies, identifying which technical requirements and assessments are now unnecessary for open and upcoming roles and determining how to assess talent against any new skill needs.

3. Four-Day Workweeks Go from Radical to Routine

A four-day workweek (4DWW) has become a centerpiece of large-scale studies in performance, union negotiations, and the preferences of many workers.

Embracing a 4DWW will require organizations to rethink the cadence of the work week and re-examine what is necessary to get work done.

Organizations in 2024 will use 4DWWs to improve talent outcomes – including employee engagement, performance and well-being – and business outcomes, including eliminating inefficiencies, increasing talent attraction and retention and driving competitive advantage.

4. Employee Conflict Resolution is New Must-Have Skill 

Conflicts between employees are poised to be at an all-time high in 2024 due to geopolitical crises, labor strikes, climate change, pushback to DEI efforts, and upcoming elections for half of the globe.

Conflict resolution requires actively working through challenging moments, pulling employees back from ostracizing colleagues with opposing viewpoints to focus on areas of mutual respect, or at least neutrality.

“Managers who can effectively navigate and manage interpersonal conflict among employees will have an outsize positive impact on their organizations; the question is how many really feel trained and prepared to do so,” said Peter Aykens, Chief of Research in the Gartner HR practice.

Organizations should consider bringing in dedicated conflict management trainings, creating shadowing and coaching opportunities for new managers to see how experienced leaders resolve intense conflicts between employees, and finding ways to recognize and reward effective conflict resolution at all levels of the organization.

5. Generative AI Experiments Will Yield Hard Lessons 

Enthusiasm, hype, and a strong fear of missing out or being left behind are driving executives to push for the implementation of GenAI within their teams and organizations.

Companies will need to actively manage the risks of GenAI, including more rigorous access and file classification policies internally, and solid quality control and judgment when utilizing the outputs of GenAI tools.

These risks don’t outweigh the potential benefits of GenAI, but they will lead organizations to train employees to develop judgment around not just information validity, but also how and when to use GenAI.

6. Skills Overtake Degrees 

College degrees are the top requirement of yesterday’s job descriptions. Organizations today are increasingly shredding the paper ceiling – the invisible barrier workers without degrees face – and embracing skills-based hiring, even for some corporate jobs long considered degree-dependent.

Removing degree requirements from job postings will enable organizations to attract qualified talent by hiring from a much broader talent pool that includes both internally developed talent and workers via Skilled Through Alternative Routes (STARs).

Leading organizations are increasingly touting their in-house universities and business schools – and expanding apprenticeship programs – as tailored credential programs that prepare talent with the specific skills they’ll need to advance.

7. Climate Change Protection 

Severe climate change-related events are shifting from localized and episodic to widespread and persistent, and organizations are responding by making climate change disaster response a more visible component of benefits packages.

In 2024 and beyond, organizations will begin to highlight and promote direct climate change protections as a key part of their benefit offerings. These will include explicit commitments to physical safety (such as plans to offer shelter or energy provisions when natural disasters arrive), compensation to impacted employees, and mental health support.

8. DEI Doesn’t Disappear, It Becomes the Way We Work

There has been a growing sense of disillusionment with DEI over the past few years; in the U.S. there’s even a sense of direct pushback. However, the critical need for diverse, equitable and inclusive workforces remains, leaving organizations uncertain about what to do next.

“In 2024, companies will begin to pivot from DEI existing solely in a silo to having it embedded throughout the organization,” said McRae. “In this new model, DEI will shift to a shared way of working as organizations fully integrate DEI values into business objectives, daily operations and culture.” ​

9. Career Stereotypes Collapse 

The traditional career path where employees rise up the ranks and retire at the peak of their career is going away. Many employees don’t retire at all or do so after a career shift or break. Workers are also facing involuntary disruption to careers due to economic cycles, displacement during conflict and natural disasters, and shifting responsibilities as technology and business models evolve.

As atypical career paths become mainstream, the well-entrenched talent stereotypes that underpin most talent management strategies will prove a growing barrier to talent acquisition and retention. For example, employers will break with the stereotype of career continuity by offering job sharing, gig work or reduced hours to provide greater flexibility.

To take advantage of expertise where it exists, regardless of tenure, organizations will break the mold of a step-by-step progressive career trajectory.

[Source] [Featured Image Credit]

The annual Gartner 2022 CMO Spend and Strategy Survey was conducted between February through March 2022 among 405 CMOs and other marketing leaders in North America, as well as Northern and Western Europe across different industries, company sizes and revenue, with the majority of respondents reporting annual revenue of more than $1 billion.

Gartner experts presented the findings during the Gartner Marketing Symposium/Xpo.

“In the face of telling macroeconomic considerations, CMOs hold on to a belief that their own economic outlook is strong,” said Ewan McIntyre, chief of research and vice president analyst in the Gartner for Marketing Leaders practice. “Despite inflation, the Russian invasion of Ukraine, supply chain issues exacerbated by China’s lockdown measures and unprecedented talent competition, CMOs appear sanguine. For example, the majority of CMOs surveyed thought inflationary pressures hitting their business and their customers will have a positive impact on their strategy and investment in the year ahead.”

Seventy percent of respondents reported their budgets had increased this year, however with marketing budgets increasing to 9.5% of total company revenue, it is still down from the average budget between 2018 and 2020 of 10.9% (see Figure 1).

Figure 1. Budgets Build Back, But Lag Pre-COVID-19 Levels

Digital Accounts for 56% of Marketing Spend, But Offline Channels Rebound

CMOs have made the shift from digital-first to hybrid multichannel strategies. When asked to report the proportion of their 2022 budget allocated to online and offline channels, online channels take the largest share (56%). However, offline channels account for almost half the total available budget (44%) – a more equitable split than in recent years.

Looking at the average spend across industries, social advertising tops the list, closely followed by paid search and digital display.

“There has been a lot of discussion around COVID-19 shifting consumers to a digital first mindset. However, as Western Europe and North America relax pandemic protocols, customer journeys have recalibrated,” said McIntyre. “Post-lockdown, CMOs need to listen carefully to their customers and pay attention to the channels they are using, as this more closely resembles a hybrid reality.”

Marketing Spend Increasing Across Nearly All Industries

Average marketing spending has increased across almost all of the industries surveyed, with some significant variances (see Figure 2).

Financial services companies recorded the highest budget, at 10.4% of company revenue, up from 7.4% in 2021.

While eight out of the nine industries surveyed reported budget increases, spending for CMOs in consumer goods firms has stagnated, moving from 8.3% in 2021 to 8% in 2022.

Figure 2. Industry-Specific Marketing Budgets

CMOs Confident On Brand Capabilities, But 61% Lack In-House Resources

Brand was one of the lowest ranked capability gaps in the survey, showing that CMOs are confident in their capabilities to manage brands. In fact, when asked to report their budget allocations across marketing’s program and operational areas, brand strategy and activation are near the top of the list, accounting for nearly 10% of the budget.

However, other strategic capabilities gaps still persist: Marketing data and analytics was identified by 26% of CMOs as a top capability gap, followed by customer understanding and experience management (23%), and marketing technology (22%).

These specific instances illustrate a larger resource challenge for CMOs, with the majority (61%) of CMOs reporting that their teams lack the capabilities required to deliver their strategy.

“Marketing is experiencing a historic surge in talent demand in 2022,” continued McIntyre. “Prioritizing the proper mix of resources should be a mission critical priority for CMOs in order to attract and retain the capabilities they need to deliver against their CEO’s goals, such as focusing on brand and customers.”

Read more: “The State of Marketing Budget and Strategy in 2022.”