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Most executive teams are already planning for the year ahead (except for those management teams woefully behind). With that backdrop, here's a look at 2024 and what you can expect. I'll update this list in December as events unfold.

Customers push back on enterprise technology price increases. Inflation has receded somewhat, but revenue and earnings growth has stalled. According to Yardeni Research, S&P 500 revenue growth in 2023 will be 4%. In 2024, revenue growth will be about the same. Earnings growth for the S&P 500 will be 3.2%, according to Yardeni, but the consensus view is flat. For 2024, earnings growth is expected to accelerate to 11%, according to Yardeni. The problem? Most enterprise software vendors are raising prices in the name of boosting productivity. Some vendors are even talking about value based contracts. It's highly doubtful that enterprise tech buyers are going to take their hard-earned earnings gains and hand them over to software providers. See: SAP user group DSAG rips S/4HANA innovation plans, maintenance increases

Enterprise IT vendors see gradual demand improvement, AI-driven buying

Generative AI disillusionment appears. This prediction is related to those price increases. In fact, generative AI advances are being used to justify price increases. Here's the problem: Every vendor in the tech stack is trying to charge you for some add-on, LLM, and copilot. Generative AI is starting to rhyme with streaming TV subscriptions. At some point, you're simply paying for stuff you're not using. How many copilots does the average worker need?

There will be a 2024 recession. Many of the factors that inspired people to predict a 2023 recession are still in place. When everyone is predicting something, it usually doesn't happen. That's why we may see a shallow 2024 recession--just as no one expects one. The working theory here is that interest rate increases take longer to work through the economy.

Tech M&A returns. There are a few green shoots of mergers and acquisitions in 2023 and once markets and interest rates stabilize the dealmaking will return en masse in 2024. Merger Mondays here we come. While M&A will return, there will be a price band. Deals will have to be big enough to matter, but not so large that they attract regulator scrutiny. Mergers and acquisitions are going to be driven by a very picky IPO market that's still hungover from the SPAC frenzy.

Enterprises embrace hybrid and remote work and start unloading commercial real estate. The trend to shed office space started in 2023 even as companies will telling employees to get their butts back in the office. Google and Facebook suddenly don't want to own half of New York City. What changed? Expiring leases that aren't being renewed. Another thing that changed: CFOs will veto the corporate culture crowd in the name of earnings.

The metaverse makes a comeback. Anyone who has seen Meta's money pit that is its metaverse business is chuckling at this prediction. But a funny thing happened in 2023: Platforms like Nvidia's Omniverse kept developing. Unity's business is doing well. And Apple's Vision Pro is going to give the metaverse a boost. Metaverse is no different than any other new tech trend. There's buzz. Then there's disillusionment. And then things go quiet, and the real disruption begins. Some technology--maybe even blockchain--left for dead will generate buzz again.

PC market bottoms and then bounces due to higher-priced systems. In 2020, everyone bought a PC. Now those PCs are due for a refresh. In addition, workstations and PCs will get upgraded for generative AI features and workloads. This PC rebound will help Intel, AMD and Nvidia. I'm going to run my PC into the ground as I await a quantum desktop (just kidding...sort of).

 

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