It comes without a surprise that the majority of the trends that will impact businesses the most into the 2020s revolves around tech advancement. New breakthroughs are being made in advanced systems such as machine learning and even quantum computers, and in turn, new protections, policies, and possibilities will arise at each stage.
Businesses need to be able to stay on top of this raging tide and to do that they must move away from one or two tech unicorns who can “do it all” and instead start to invest in specializations. It is only through specialist development that each individual area, from customer service to supply chain streamlining, can be accomplished.
The future is here, and these trends will only grow in strength and sophistication. Don’t be held back and instead adopt these top nine trends with vigor, because that is how you will stay ahead of the competition and bring your business into the next era.
1.Greater Control Over Personal Data
Personal data protections will roll out to protect your customers. These protections already exist in the European Union and in several states throughout the US. To gain new information, you will need to prove trustworthy and also adopt a more interactive approach.
What Businesses Can Do
Quizzes, personalization settings, and more can help encourage your customers to provide you their information willingly. Use this information to gain statistical data and improve service and efficiency.
Encouraging your own users to provide data is essential, as it is estimated that an average of 71% of data you purchase from other companies is inaccurate or falsified.
2.Alternative Lending and Purchasing
Alternative lending has become a huge trend in businesses as banks have become less than forthcoming with providing upstart funds for new and small businesses.
On the other end of this spectrum is alternative purchasing. Many businesses are starting to look into payment plans, from Airbnb to individual brands. This is to help spread out the costs for big-ticket payments and, in turn, make buying products more accessible to customers.
What Businesses Can Do
Knowing your options both for lending and for providing payment schemes is going to be essential to ensure your business has the best deal. Depending on the size of your company you might be able to offer a lending program that would facilitate installment payments on your own, but there is risk involved with this.
3.Personalization Wins, Again
Though the need to tighten the reigns of personal data collection is growing, the need and demand for personalization services is not. That is why encouraging customers to willingly provide their personal preferences and user activity is essential.
What Businesses Can Do
Businesses need to invest in several technologies to improve their personalization, even in the face of stricter privacy laws. Machine learning and AI, in particular, are going to be of key interest here, as they will be able to communicate to customers directly and provide a personalized level of service that even the biggest call center in the world could not replicate.
Hiring specialists, like Machine Learning engineers or Cloud architects, is going to help immensely with this goal.
4.Subscriptions Take Precedence
Subscriptions, in the form of boxes, services, and so on are growing in popularity and have been these last few years. Having products shipped directly to the door for a great price is winning customers over immensely.
What Businesses Can Do
Creating subscriptions at healthy prices is a great way to create a consistent and reliable revenue stream. Many types of brands can offer subscription boxes or small subscription services and benefit from this prevailing trend. Combine subscription services with ongoing personalization and communication, to truly develop an ongoing relationship that strengthens each month.
5.Corporate Social Responsibility Wins Favor
The push for sustainability and environmentalism means that corporate social responsibility (CSR) is in bigger demand than ever. You can win new customers and improve loyalty amongst your current customer base by providing an insight into the efforts you are going to in order to become more sustainable and holistic.
What Businesses Can Do
There are great innovations in more sustainable production methods and in the circular economy, but it will require greater transparency and collaboration. Unlike other trends in this list, relying on the methods, expertise, and tools developed by other companies is going to benefit your business best.
6.Big Data Becomes Increasingly Available
Big Data is becoming increasingly available to businesses, but the ability to analyze and interpret this data is just as out of reach as before. That is why the need to invest in specialists, like Data Scientists and Statisticians, is so crucial.
What Businesses Can Do
There are multiple solutions to take better control of the potential of Big Data and even your own data sets. A great place to start is to hire someone who has achieved a degree in statistics or even better consider sponsoring an employee to undertake an online Masters in Statistics from a top technological university which focusses on both statistics and data science. The dual approach to statistics will benefit your business greatly in the upcoming era when Big Data and data science become critical to your company’s success. Be sure that you don’t miss out on the opportunities that it would bring with it.
7.Creation and Adoption of New Tech Grows
New technologies are exploding with potential. Just recently Google announced a huge breakthrough with its quantum computing prototypes, a tech that would work more than 100 million times faster than a standard computer chip. To put this into perspective, Microsoft has announced that its quantum computers have solved a random number problem in less than four minutes.
This doesn’t sound impressive until you consider that a conventional supercomputer that we have available now would have taken thousands of years to come to the same conclusion. This claim is in contention, of course, as IBM states its supercomputers would have taken just two or so days to come up with the same solution.
Regardless, this leap is huge, and just shows the potential of how future tech can change the future of businesses forever.
What Businesses Can Do
Investing in new software is one of the most accessible ways that businesses can stay ahead of the curve. That being said, staying on top of tech news and running a costs benefits analysis on promising developments is another strategy that will work to strengthen and improve any company willing to continually evolve.
8.The Cloud Becomes More Advanced
The Cloud has already proven incredibly useful for businesses of all sizes, but its potential is far from reach. Automation can be done at never-before-seen scales due to digital and online datasets that can instantly communicate with one another, and that’s the software side.
Microsoft has recently launched a new initiative, where they are allowing certain Cloud users access to their quantum prototypes. Though the tech is still not there yet, the goal is to provide companies with the framework to learn more and understand what potential quantum computing and the Cloud has for the world.
What Businesses Can Do
Investing in your own infrastructure and services on the Cloud is one of the best ways to improve your own business’ services, automation, and efficiency. This means hiring a Cloud architect that will work to convert systems to the Cloud and even bridge software to solve your current issues.
9.Machine Learning and AI
Machine learning and AI programs have come far, and though we are not yet, nor potentially will we ever be, close to a sentient AI, what we have now is perfect for businesses. Many businesses can offer greater personalization, services, and automation to their customers and employees with specially designed ML and AI programs.
What Businesses Can Do
Hiring machine learning engineers is the best way to evolve and develop your own machine learning tools that can work to improve your customer service, automation, and so much more. Rather than adopting systems created by other businesses, which would require your company to conform, a machine learning engineer can work to create solutions unique to you.
Investing in these Trends and Maintaining Healthy Quarters
It can be tempting to wait for a healthy quarter to inject much-needed investment into any of these trends, but the problem with that strategy is that it denies customers and your employees the opportunity to make use of these technologies and trends now. You cannot risk the wait, and must instead work to innovate today.
Injecting cash into your business does come with risk, but a good way to start is not to invest in a project, but into a team. Ongoing development is going to be key to meet the expectations and exceed them year after year, and relying on outsourced work or on installing third-party software is not going to cut it any longer. It is time to invest in specialists and in new business models that will provide customers with the level of service and sophistication they want.
