What Technologies Will Define Business This Year?
Businesses need technology to function in the 21st century, and as a new year gets underway, modern solutions will become more important than ever as organizations aim to thrive in the face of new challenges and market pressures.
Here is a look at what tech will make the biggest difference in 2021 and why it will be so impactful in the commercial sector over the coming weeks and months.
Video conferencing & virtual meeting platforms will continue to flourish
Many businesses have pivoted towards embracing remote working in the past year, and this trend looks set to accelerate further, resulting in a total reconfiguration of operations within many industries.
Platforms which provide video conferencing capabilities to teams of all shapes and sizes will blossom as a result, but will also be subjected to increased scrutiny with regards to both their resilience and their security.
There will also be increased competition in this space, which is good for business customers. Likewise there will be a lower tolerance for technical hiccups within virtual meeting platforms, especially as the role they play in fuelling productivity intensifies.
Cloud-based collaboration solutions will empower businesses
The cloud has been a talking point of business tech for over a decade at this point, but its promise is only just being realized on a scale that can benefit small organizations as well as large multinationals.
In particular the collaborative aspect of cloud software solutions, which enable lots of users to make changes and contributions to shared files and documents simultaneously, will come to the forefront this year. Catalyzed by the remote working trend, the age of sharing files manually via email or even USB storage will come to a close.
Businesses across every industry stand to benefit; whether you run an online casino like Casumo or are in charge of a digital marketing agency or work in design and manufacturing, the cloud will afford your employees access to the tools they need to collaborate effectively with colleagues, no matter where they are located.
5G infrastructure will come of age
The fifth generation of mobile networking technology has been a long time coming, but it is finally being rolled out far and wide, increasing coverage for those with compatible devices and allowing significantly faster connection speeds as a result.
While 4G was adequate for a lot of uses, the emergence of the remote working era has proven that 5G is not just some unnecessary upgrade, but rather a vital step forward that will support the kind of functionality modern business customers crave.
It is not just mobile, tablet and laptop connectivity which is relevant in the 5G era, but also the impact that this will have on the automotive sector. Cars with smart, web-powered features are becoming more commonplace, and as the move towards true autonomous operation picks up pace, 5G will be central to achieving the ambitions and claims of the biggest automotive brands worldwide.
AI & automation will gain traction
Speaking of autonomous operation, this is not just increasingly common on the road, but also in the factory. Robotics are being developed and adopted at a rapid pace, with the aim being to replace human workers in roles which are often both dangerous and monotonous.
Meanwhile artificial intelligence, which is tied into many autonomous manufacturing systems as well as to other tech solutions, will become increasingly applicable and capable of coping with more complex tasks.
All of this adds up to mean that while businesses can stand to make major progress thanks to technologies, they also risk being left behind if they are not quick to act.