As we say goodbye to 2023 and welcome 2024, it’s a time to think about the good and tough parts of the year. Not everything goes the way we want, but we can learn from both the good and bad experiences. I see 2023 as a year of making things better, like fixing the base of a building. I’ve picked my top five observations on foundational changes from this year, and some might continue into 2024.

Every end is a beginning, if there is no end, then there is no beginning, just like the year 2023 can only start after the end of year 2022. So this is the right time to reflect and plan for a better beginning. A “Forward Looking Reflection” was my topic of a guest lecture at DesignersX at their year end event. We discussed challenges of software development, and how the industry is trying to solve them.

Change is the only constant, it requires continuous effort from humankind to understand the change that leads to success, and make us even more successful. In my earlier article, I talked about the success mantra, and also wrote about accepting the change when required. Sometimes the way we perceive our success becomes a blocker for becoming more successful. We accumulate some habits knowingly or unknowingly along the path of being successful, and mostly we never realize that those habits start blocking our way forward.

Everyone in India is talking about Jeff Bezos, the richest of the world, who was on India’s visit recently. People are talking about the investments he is making in India, talking about his prediction about India’s “21st Century is going to be the Indian century”, and discussing the impact on small businesses. We have seen disruptions lead by Amazon in multiple sectors, now people have a fear that whatever Amazon touch, it becomes Amazon’s.