The rapid development of technology has caused global changes in various areas of business: financial and banking sectors, healthcare and insurance, real estate and e-commerce. Thanks to the new tools and new opportunities, the experts were able to more accurately estimate the business trends of 2019 and make new forecasts. Thus, five major trends were identified by Computools, which large and small enterprises should follow this year.
The Highest Priority: Customer Experience
Adaptive design, web site usability, cross-platform application development – all this comes to the fore in 2019 and companies must take this into account. At first glance, this may seem important only for e-commerce, but experts have repeatedly stated that all business areas are shifting from offline to online. This means that not only the online store should worry about creating a user-friendly design.
Statistics claim that companies whose sites offer online tours of apartments offered for sale are 37% more successful than their competitors, which provide access only to photos. The technology of augmented and virtual reality has gained widespread use in real estate: without leaving the agency’s office, a potential client can visit several buildings or apartments.
As practice shows, it is far from enough to offer a unique product or service or conduct an aggressive advertising campaign. Equally, with drawing attention to your product, there is the need to satisfy your consumer: find out his needs, select and propose the most appropriate solution. Moreover, it should be done unobtrusively, providing maximum convenience and comfort for the client.
A customer-centric approach in building new business development and transformation strategy will help take the company to a higher level.
Digital Transformation: The Golden Age of AI and Machine Learning
The future has already arrived: AI manages gadgets and equipment, helps to select personnel for companies, plans and forecasts profits, communicates with clients instead of a live call-center operator. For many firms, digital transformation starts with the implementation of the AI chat-bots.
It is predicted that the rapid adoption of AI across global businesses will help the AI market reach about $13 trillion in 2030; while Machine Learning (ML) will be responsible for cumulative investments of $58 billion by the end of 2021.
What is the key to such a huge success? The answer is simple: these technologies offer unique opportunities to any business, small, medium or big. In addition, these technologies are constantly evolving and are becoming more widely used in various fields.
A company of any size and level can take advantage of AI and ML: from a startup to a transnational corporation. In the first case, the AI will help to create a development strategy, and in the second, to transform the enterprise, reduce costs and increase profits by several times.
Moving with The Users: Mobile Applications Are Everywhere
More and more users prefer mobile devices: phones and tablets with operating systems Android and IOs. Today, you can find a mobile application for everything: from the classic calendar and notes to the remote management of gadgets and your finances. The share of mobile applications in the global market has grown by 42% in the last year only. Convenience, accessibility from any corner of the world and ease of use underlie the success of mobile applications and the growth of their popularity among users.
That is why the development of mobile app should be a mandatory item in the investment plan of an innovative company that seeks not only to stay on the market but also to take a leadership position.
However, before you immediately rush into the development of mobile applications – for your company – you need to define a target audience or choose a niche, meet the needs and requirements of potential customers. Such a deep analysis will allow you to correctly determine the development strategy, the necessary functionality, the steps needed to ensure data security, and even the interface of the future application.
Customers appreciate the convenience and clarity of the mobile application. This means that the most important thing should always be visible, but additional services can be pushed into the background and hidden under a separate button.
Delegating Complex Tasks to Experts: Outsourcing and Outstaffing Teams
It is impossible to be a professional in everything. This is especially noticeable in recent years when more and more new technologies appear in the global IT market. These solutions are designed to improve the business model, boost productivity and increase profits. However, the application and implementation of new solutions require new knowledge, and what is more important experience and skills.
Of course, this problem can be solved in several ways: to train your staff, hire a specialist in the state, or outsource the task. Outsourcing and outstaffing have many advantages that can be used by big and small enterprises. For example, reducing costs. Thus, outsource IT services can help to save up to 60% on each project.
Hiring a dedicated team allows you to focus on your core mission in providing a high-quality product and service to your customer offshoring the task to people who can perform it better. Outsourcing certain independent tasks, allows your business to maintain financial flexibility when there is an uncertainty in demand. You can scale up or down comfortably. At a much lower cost, offshore outsourcing provides the additional benefit of running your business in full throttle even during offseason and holiday months.
The Rise of Cybersecurity: Blockchain and Cloud Solutions
Modern technologies offer remote access to many services and facilities. Registration in online stores, personal offices on public and private portals, accounts in applications, all this requires the client to provide personal data. In addition, personal medical and financial data can also be stored in a database of institutions.
The frequent cases of cyber-attacks on various institutions have led to think about improving the cybersecurity of the local system and external storage. It also served as a stimulus for the development and search for new solutions that would more effectively deal with the problem of cybersecurity.
Blockchain is already widely used not only by financial services and institutions but also by commercial companies from other areas: e-commerce, healthcare, entertainment. The application of this method of data security and protection has already proven its effectiveness. To predict and defeat attacks in real time, cybersecurity can move to the cloud. The cloud can leverage big data and instant analytics over a large swath of end users to instantly address known threats and predict threats that seek to overwhelm security.
Hybrid and mixed cybersecurity security solutions, in which different technologies reinforce each other creating an impermeable barrier for intruders, also have high efficiency.
Following the business trends allow to strengthen the company, improve the proposed services and keep up with new technologies. And yet, the application of innovative solutions must necessarily be reasonable and strategically justified.
