5 Tech Trends Every Business Owner Should Be Aware Of

Technology and business go hand in hand: as technologies advance, so too does a company’s capacity to evolve, grow and outmaneuver the competition. With every new innovation comes the potential to streamline, enhance productivity, reduce costs and serve customers more efficiently.

As existing technologies continue to evolve and brand new technologies emerge, it’s important that every business owner is aware of the potential these innovations have to accelerate their company’s growth: staying one step ahead is often about early adoption, so knowledge of what’s around the corner is vital.

In this blog, we’ll look at 5 emerging tech trends that every business owner needs to be aware of. Let’s dive in:

Remote Onboarding

For many prospective employees, flexible working is no longer viewed simply as a perk — increasingly, it’s an expectation. Now, not all companies will be flexible enough to allow their staff to work in whatever far-flung location they like (and that’s okay, because digital nomadism really is a perk), but those who insist on a solely physical onboarding process might find themselves struggling to attract top talent.

As remote and cloud-based technologies evolve (tools like HR Cloud’s onboarding software allow seamless collaboration and knowledge-sharing), new starters no longer need to physically turn up to an office on their first day — their onboarding can all be done remotely.

The advantages of remote onboarding for businesses:

• Access to more talent: one advantage of hiring and onboarding remotely is that it theoretically opens up a far wider talent pool, since physical location is less of a concern — that means you have access to more potential candidates and a better chance of filling roles with the right
• Reduced costs: for both employee and employer, remote onboarding usually means significant cost savings — there’s no need to cover travel expenses or accommodation costs, for example, as all training can be done virtually.
• Increased efficiency: with SaaS solutions facilitating slick communication and streamlining HR processes, laborious processes like constant form-filling are a thing of the past — both the employer and their new employee can use their time more efficiently.

Cloud Computing

Of course, cloud computing (the delivery of computing services via a virtual “cloud” using interconnected servers) is nothing new, but you may be less familiar with cloud hosting, an Infrastructure as a Service (Iaas) delivery model used to host websites and applications. Cloud hosting is largely seen as a more efficient alternative to VPS hosting, a separate web hosting model which provides dedicated resources to multiple users on one server.

That’s mostly because cloud hosting works via a pool of unified servers (rather than a single one), so using a managed cloud hosting provider like Cloudways vs a VPS hosting solution will result in reduced latency, increased uptime and ultimately a more reliable performance.

The advantages of cloud computing for businesses include the following:

• Scalability: cloud computing enables businesses to scale resources (such as RAM and processing power) quickly and on-demand, which is especially beneficial for rapidly-growing businesses that require the agility to adapt to sudden spikes in demand.
• Cost efficiency: since you won’t have to invest in hardware, facilities or a dedicated data center, cloud computing can significantly reduce regular expenditure — plus, with most cloud service providers, you only ever pay for the resources you use.
• Increased performance: speed and latency are key factors that impact not only the performance of apps and websites, but also the productivity of in-house teams; with cloud computing, almost 100% uptime is guaranteed (since multiple servers act as a series of “safety nets”), while speed and performance are eminently reliable.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Artificial intelligence has been a familiar concept to us for decades, but it’s never been more ingrained in our personal and professional lives as it is today. A subset of artificial intelligence is natural language processing (NLP), which is the ability of a machine to interpret, analyze and respond to human language in a way that is (almost) indistinguishable from a genuine human being.

This is the technology behind AI-powered chatbots, which can simulate a human-to-human conversation and provide virtual assistance to users. Roof.ai, for example, helps real estate companies provide 24/7, real-time assistance, which enables them to respond to leads even when their human teams have clocked off.

The advantages of AI for businesses:

• Increased productivity: AI can automate processes and reduce the time spent on menial, resource-draining tasks, meaning your workforce can focus on more business-critical matters.
• Better insights: there’s only so much data a human can process and interpret, but a sophisticated AI can analyze large data sets in mere moments, providing clear, actionable insights as a result.
• Improved customer experience: while chatbots can provide 24/7 customer support, AI can also be leveraged to deliver exceptional customer experiences, using sophisticated algorithms to deliver highly personalized and relevant solutions.

Software Unification

Most businesses nowadays will use multiple types of software to carry out everyday tasks; be it managing projects and workloads, facilitating collaboration, sharing files and documents, or even just sending and receiving emails. As we become increasingly reliant on a wider pool of software (particularly in largely remote and cloud-based environments), we’ll see the benefit in integrating these disparate platforms so they can work together.

Slack is a great example: this employee collaboration tool works well in isolation, but it’s even more effective when you consider it can integrate with Google Drive (to make sharing files even easier), Trello (to facilitate seamless project management) and Microsoft Teams (to allow employees to start and join meetings without leaving Slack).

The advantages of software unification for businesses:

• More efficiency: rather than hopping from one platform to another to carry out various stages of a project or a task, by integrating software you can do it all in one place, saving time and increasing productivity.
• Improved collaboration: by unifying various tools and platforms, your employees can communicate and collaborate seamlessly — share files, ask questions, provide updates and launch meetings all from one central platform.
• Better accessibility: when important business resources can be accessed from one place instead of several, it means that your teams theoretically have access to everything they need, all of the time — less time will be spent logging in to multiple platforms to access files or information.

Virtual and Augmented Reality

Virtual and augmented realities may seem more suited to the world of online gaming (indeed, games like Fortnite and Second Life use VR to simulate immersive “worlds”), but these concepts are equally vital to the future of business, too. Take Microsoft, for example, which has used VR technology to create Mesh, an advanced feature of its Teams platform that enables employees to collaborate in virtual environments that (somewhat) replicate the feeling of sharing the same physical space.

AR technology, meanwhile, is helping businesses get better at serving their customers: Walmart uses AR technology to allow shoppers to view furniture and decor items in their own homes through the View In Your Space feature of its mobile app.

The advantages of VR and AR in business:

• Enhanced collaboration: as with the Microsoft Mesh example, virtual reality can (and increasingly will) facilitate more meaningful collaboration by simulating face-to-face experiences even in a virtual space.
• Increased prototyping and design capabilities: with VR and AR technologies, the design, prototyping and testing of new products in a simulated physical space will allow businesses to build and manufacture new products quickly and efficiently.
• Improved customer experience: many businesses are using AR technology to meld physical and virtual environments, meaning customers can see what a product looks like in a physical space before they buy it (a la the Walmart example).