Chips, Talent, and Security: What Threatens Tech Companies in 2022?

Whether we’re talking about tech companies on the scale of Alphabet and Meta or smaller-scale businesses building apps or designing video games, there are threats that need to be understood and mitigated.

We’ve identified the five most pressing threats a tech company can face and look at how they can be avoided.

The Five Threats Every Tech Company Should Know

1. A lack of internal focus

A business is only as good as its product and team. It is important to understand what your competitors are doing, but it’s more important to look after your own operations and profits. 

Recently, the CEO of Google, Sundar Pichai, said “I have always held the view that you tend to go wrong by focusing too much on competition. Big companies, particularly, fail because they stumble internally.“

Take Instagram, for example; since the rise of TikTok, it has tilted its focus toward video content. In a recent announcement about even more video focus, users and creators became so upset that IG was losing its way that the company U-turned on some of its plans. 

Businesses need to focus on the problem they solve and why their consumers love them. Keeping an eye on internal processes and retaining great people will also help. 

2. Cybersecurity

Tech companies are a clear target for hackers. Everything a tech company does tends to be online, so there is, theoretically, a wealth of customer, employee, and proprietary data stored online. 

Now, take remote work into account. Nearly a quarter of all IT jobs are remote, the highest rate of any industry. This way of working poses unique threats, such as keeping worker devices secure across a range of connections and operating systems. 

One simple way to protect all employees is to pick the best VPN for multiple devices. Teams can mask their browsing location and encrypt their data when connecting to work servers, no matter the hardware they use. 

Simple but powerful protection like this can prevent bigger attacks like ransomware which tracks employee activity in order to hack systems, encrypt data, and demand millions of dollars to fix. 

3. Chip shortages

Every tech company needs hardware – and plenty make and supply it. Supply chain issues have become a huge threat to tech companies, both in terms of getting a new tech to work with and getting products to market. 

Supply-side problems may not seem like a tech issue, but there has been a perfect storm that is threatening many technology companies:

• The surge in demand for electronic devices during the COVID-19 pandemic;
• Lockdowns in the areas where the factories are located;
• An over-reliance on a few major chip manufacturers within the industry.

This storm of circumstances has even led to major government intervention, with President Biden changing regulations to encourage chip production in the USA, for example. 

4. Sourcing talent

A career in tech tends to be lucrative, yet there are still massive skills shortages around the world. In fact, in a survey of CEOs, it was found that nearly two-thirds of tech innovation was being held back by a lack of talent. 

Without the right people and the right skills to innovate, tech companies can stagnate and not develop at the rate consumers expect. 

5. Operational resilience

Getting products and enhancements to markets is an issue that is compounded by the skills shortage. 

Rolling out change across a business will always be a challenge, and tech pipelines can pose particular problems. 

There is a push to get changes into production quickly, and innovations like continuous integration/continuous deployment (CI/CD) are used by some of the best-performing tech companies. 

However, the faster a company moves, the more likely it is to break. The demand for constant innovation is a threat to the long-term stability of a tech company if it can’t manage change effectively.

Threats to tech companies

Some of the biggest companies in the world are now tech companies, and threats to a business can come from everywhere. 

While traditional issues are still around, tech companies are exposed to some of the most modern problems a business can face. 

The industry has unique threats, such as cybersecurity and chip shortages, and also faces traditional business threats, such as talent management and growth and expansion challenges.

However, taking the right precautions may help tech companies to survive the market waves and profit in the long run.