New technologies are released every other month and they are designed to improve our lives. Technology has changed a lot of how we do things, including business. Even though it has replaced many job positions, new technologies mean new needs, thus creating more job opportunities.
Careers like software developers or SEO experts, for instance, didn’t exist 20 years ago. To illustrate the changes further below is a break down of how tech is changing the way we do business in 2020.
Customer Interaction
Customer interaction is one of the areas that have seen more transformation with the introduction of new technologies. There are multiple channels where customers can now interact with brands like social media platforms, reviews sites, online stores, and more. Clients can reach out to a business and get a response within a few minutes. Also, they are literally one click away from knowing if a company provides an excellent or poor service. Customer service is also faster and more personalized through various tools like video calling.
The days where clients had to send emails to contact an online business are also in the past. They can still do so but why should they when a company can answer their queries on other platforms in a matter of minutes. Plus, many customers prefer text communication than the hassle of a phone call.
Another new development implemented in the last few years is bots. The most common are chatbots that are programmed into a website to answer basic queries on their own, or to walk users through the website. Another recent change is the introduction of smart contracts, which execute themselves without any human interactions; this is thanks to blockchain technology.
Digital Marketing
Digital Marketing has been around since the beginning of the internet. But it has had many changes since, especially in the last few years. As mentioned before, businesses can now interact with customers through platforms like social media. However, social media has also opened a new door to a whole new type of marketing—paid ads campaigns. They are a marketing tool that platforms like Google, Facebook, and Youtube, offer to businesses so they can reach the audience they want.
These targeted ads are possible thanks to data science and data analytics. Nowadays, almost every platform collects data from its users and creates a profile of them. These profiles have information such as what the person likes, what type of account this person follows, and even predict ethnicity based on the person’s interests. Then, the platforms use this information to show them ads that align with their profiles.
There’s also a tool called search engine optimization (SEO), which is a set of rules that websites can follow to be better positioned in a Google search. These techniques bring more organic traffic and can improve the overall performance of any website. And with more traffic, a business’ website has more to make from ads or business revenue. Email marketing tools have also changed how businesses do email campaigns. Companies now can send a monthly newsletter to all their subscribers by using services like MailChimp.
Automation
Automation has been the latest revolution in almost all industries. Machines are taking over many of the jobs that humans used to do—mainly jobs that were dangerous, tedious, or require a lot of time. Computers are faster and are more accurate than us, so it’s only reasonable to use them to aid us with such tasks. Even though they have replaced some job positions, many more careers have been created with the new needs spurred by new technologies.
One of the changes automation has done to businesses are automated customer service. As mentioned above, chatbots are an excellent automated tool to answer questions in seconds. The manufacturing industry has seen a vast improvement too. With automatic production lines, the time to deliver a product is much faster and the quality is much better. Engineers design robots to accomplished many tasks. Overall, automation makes processes more rapid, more efficient, and cheaper.
Need for Security
Previously, companies only had to worry about the security in their physical offices, but now Cybersecurity is more important than ever. Some people may say this is the era of data. Since everything is transitioning into the digital world, this translates into vast amounts of information being gathered and therefore, requiring to be stored. Generally, the information saved by businesses can be anything from corporate secrets that costs millions of dollars to sensitive information from their customers. All of this data needs to be protected.
Cyberattacks are more common every year and companies can lose tons of money even from minor security breaches. On top of that, many new laws and regulations make it mandatory for businesses to protect their customer’s information. Now, when companies design their servers or network system, they have to do it with a heavy emphasis on security.
Cloud Computing
This is another significant change that is possible thanks to the internet. Cloud computing is essentially outsourced cloud services like storage, servers, and analytics that are accessible through an internet connection. Before, businesses had to invest in their own hardware, servers, programmers, IT gurus, and so on, to be able to have updated tech infrastructure. Implementing their own tech structures required a lot of money, making it harder for companies to expand or downsize their operations.
Now with the cloud service, it is as easy as paying a monthly fee to have access to the cloud. Cloud computing is very scalable and makes things like team collaboration extremely easy. Companies no longer have to hire costly engineers and tech professionals to have data analytics, machine learning, and visualization tools at their fingertips.
Businesses that have different locations can use the cloud as a one-stop center for their employees to have instant access to the company’s database. Cloud services also improve cybersecurity. Businesses don’t have to worry about building their own security features because the cloud platform they hired does it all for them. Overall, cloud computing has changed how companies manage and store their data, making it a lot cheaper and efficient.
