Gartner’s recent list of trends in technology for 2017 paint an exceptionally interesting picture for any SMB willing to think big heading into the new year. Although accurate predictions of what the business/technology landscape will look like grow fuzzier and less distinct the further out we look, what seems clear now is that there will be ample opportunities for a forward-thinking SMB to leverage a number of key technologies in order to reach new levels of productivity – and even to deliver entirely new products, services, and customer experiences.
More Mobility
Although this may seem like just more of the same – after all, mobility has been a steadily growing aspect of business tech for years – adoption of services like cloud-based document storage, hosted VoIP, distributed project management, and communications suites are set to reach a critical mass that might just change how the majority of companies do business.
Intelligent Apps
Intelligent apps, sometimes called smart apps, are applications that leverage the burgeoning abilities of artificial intelligence (AI) to support workers in becoming more productive, more creative, and more effective. The ways in which AI can be applied to business apps are already varied and nuanced, and we’ve only begun to scratch the surface when it comes to potential uses.
At the moment, the most commonly used applications involve voice recognition and transcription as well as anticipating the information needs of workers – applications of great utility to an SMB.
Virtual and Augmented Reality
As is so often the case with new technology, what was once developed for the game room is now moving to the board room. Virtual reality (VR) creates an entirely artificial environment that is experienced by the user as though it was real by way of a VR headset. Augmented reality, most recently popularized by the game Pokémon Go, overlays the real world with additional information that only exists digitally, often through the use of a smart phone or tablet.
The human resources/training and customer contact applications of this technology are immediately useful for almost any SMB, and it also has implications, through its use in tele-presence solutions, in allowing a small business to expand operations over a wider geographical area without significantly increasing staffing.
Adaptive Security
Almost a combination of several of the previously mentioned technologies, adaptive security uses a multi-layered security framework and machine learning to identify and remember potential threats and protect against them in the future. This type of security is superior to inert security solutions in that it is always actively scanning the system for threats and breaches. It protects the network proactively rather than reactively, and does so more quickly than any human being could.
The development of cloud services and numerous “as a Service” technologies over the past decade have allowed SMBs to level the playing field and hold their own against much bigger corporations. These new developments might go one step further and allow SMBs to truly take advantage of their adaptability, flexibility, and agility to not just compete with big corporations – but to out-compete them.