It’s becoming increasingly important for businesses to leverage on technology especially in marketing. It makes targeting your audience easier and improves the speed of delivering your services and with the entry of IoT, things might just get better in the future. The cost of doing business is also likely to go down significantly, for example in hiring when you hire virtual staffs.
We asked entrepreneurs and business owners how technology affects their business (tomorrow) and here are the insightful responses.
#1- Lowering barriers
For our company, tomorrow’s technology means lowering barriers between our remote work staff and client base. We still fly our teams in for face-to-face meetings and collaborative work sessions. When technology allows us to feel and be *present* across time zones, this will be the game-changer for how we work, although I would never want to completely replace in-person connections.
Thanks to Kelly Goto, GotoResearch!
#2- Time saved and life will be easier
I've discovered that we have to embrace every single piece of technology that can save us even five minutes a day. If I find an app that can make my life easier, it's an easy download decision for me to make, especially if it integrates with other apps or clients that I already use. We sometimes hear about how our world is becoming ‘too technical,' but does anyone really want to be stuck on an episode of The Walking Dead, with no technology to be found? As I work in the tech world, I see all sorts of new apps and software that can make the business maz a much easier place to navigate. So, I can't wait
to see what's on deck for 2020!
Thanks to Andrea Loubier, Mailbird!
#3- Reaching the right people
Consumer media and communication technology is changing how businesses market, brand and communicate with their target audiences. More precise targeting of custom video advertisements through Over-The-Top (OTT) streaming television is changing media planning from buying programs to selecting niche audiences based on demographics, geo-location, behavior, interests, etc. Limiting views to only higher-quality and more relevant audiences will improve marketing ROI, and even user experience.
Thanks to Dan Goldstein, Page 1 Solutions, LLC!
#4- Impact on all business aspects
Technology will affect nearly every aspect of your business – from how you market your brand and how clients interact with your brand to internal processes that streamline and save time. Another consideration is how your customers use technology in their day-to-day and how that will affect your business. The way customers search, consider, and ultimately choose your brand has a multitude of technology touchpoints that can help you or hurt you. The bigger question is really WHICH technologies are going to affect you the most and do you have a strategy to make them work in your favor? You can't attack every technology hurdle at once, so prioritize the biggest technology gaps that are going to affect you.
Thanks to Bernard May, National Positions!
#5- Shift the market
My business model is 100% based on the way technology will change the way small businesses interact with tax service providers. As one of the few virtual tax preparation and consultation providers, Taxhub will leverage virtual and digital tech to continue to shift the market from traditional brick-and-mortar CPA shops to the much more efficient and convenient virtual CPA model. This will open up an entirely new level of financial expertise that was previously not accessible to smaller businesses and self employed contractors.
Thanks to George Birrell, Taxhub!
#6- Reliance on big data (AI) and personalized data
I think that technology is not only the future of tommorow. Rather, it is the face of today's and tommorow's business. As a participant in the ever changing website-hosting and front-end development niches, my business( tomorrow) will heavily rely on big data (AI) and personalized data (in equal measure.) This is why I am heavily intrigued with AI-enabled personal assistants like Alexa. They represent the futute of my business.
Thanks to Nathan Finch, Aussie Web Hosting!
#7- More self-service
The way I see it: tomorrow’s technology is going to make customers lean more towards self-service. Self-service has come a long way from AI chat bots to self-serve kiosks and self-serve checkouts. This is becoming a common preference among customers today because it allows them to find faster solutions they can perform on their own time. They don’t need adjust to a business’ regular operating hours or wait for the availability of a customer service representative. Businesses will have to adapt to the rapidly spreading self-service trend and provide avenues or channels for customers to do so. Someday, customers are going to find it unusual for a business not to have automated messages or chat bots immediately responding to their queries. Emails and phone calls would soon become part of the ancient history of customer service, as well as direct interaction between customers and workers. But this isn’t a bad development at all. It’s a welcome chance. This actually benefits businesses, especially the small ones, as it can boost the rate of lead to sales conversion and eliminate or lessen customer escalation cases.
Thanks to Dane Kolbaba, Watchdog Pest Control!
#8- In a number of ways
Technology will affect my business greatly because my SaaS app depends on the way websites are structured. If there are new trends in design, website development or user experience, it will completely change the way my app works. Moreover, the competition in the marketing tech sphere is fierce, and if my competitors come up with something that is vastly better, I need to adapt and change my approach entirely. I think anyone in the SaaS realm needs to keep up with the trends in order to stay in business. For example, GDPR hit everyone hard last year and to combat it, businesses in all industries had to adapt their privacy policies. That’s why I always aim to keep up with the trends in tech and legislation – you never know what the next change might bring.
Thanks to Carsten Schaefer, crowdy.ai!
#9- Reduction in the use of fossil fuels, pesticides and fertilizers
As farm operations and seed companies look to become more efficient and environmentally friendly, technology will be used extensively to help reduce the amount of pesticides and fertilizer used to grow increasingly bigger crops. More autonomous, small equipment will reduce the use of fossil fuels, pesticides and fertilizers and help get more accomplished with a shriking workforce.
Thanks to Ben Green, Purple Ribbon Seeds!
#10- Increased opportunities for cyberattacks
Ever-advancing technology has revolutionized the business world, but with new technology comes increased opportunities for cyberattacks. Though cyberattacks on large companies are more likely to make headlines, growing businesses are increasingly easy targets. That’s because they are notoriously under-resourced when it comes to cybersecurity. Growing companies faced with limited financial flexibility often consider IT support too costly. Cybersecurity is also a low priority among business owners who are primarily focused on growing their brand and turning a profit. However, in years to come, protecting devices and securing technology will be more important than ever.
Thanks to Peter Purcell, EVAN360!
#11-VR to Showcase Investments
Having a world that will constantly change and develop new technologies means that everything can change in just a few days! It's one of the most exciting parts of owning a business; seeing the growth and pushing for innovation. Within the property development industry, the idea that we could use VR to show investors that they could be investing in is such an exciting part. Using VR would mean that investors can walk around the buildings that they're putting money into, they'd be able to view the little details that might actually make or break a deal. While this would be an extra expense, it would offer an idea of the length at companies would go to in order to finish the project to a high standard.
Thanks to George Richardson, Arbor Living!
#12- Automate and streamline our projects
Technologies in the metals industry, more specifically the stainless steel industry isn't something that gets updated on a regular basis. However, the project management side of our business is something that we look forward to developing. With artificial intelligence and machine learning in a perpetual state of development, it might mean that we could automate and streamline our projects. This could mean that there's a lower cost involved so that we can save money for our customers. Pushing for these less obvious developments in technology for our industry is what would set us apart from our competitors because they wouldn't be looking for this kind of evolution.
Thanks to Gareth Davies, DSM Stainless Steel Products!
#13- Provide our customers with the best product or service
I think data analytics and the information we are able to gather on our customers – what they want more or less of, what we can do to make the end product or service they receive better – will continue to impact various business decisions – and I truly think this is a good thing. There is a lot of discussion about all the information out there, and I understand the concerns. However, I do think a lot of the data benefits those of us running businesses and companies aiming to provide our customers with the best product or service. The more we know about what they want, the better we can serve them.
Thanks to Michael Stahl, HealthMarkets!
#14- AI impact on distribution
The data compiled by AI will help distributors know what customers want before they want it. Amazon has already implemented this with great success. Over 30% of their revenue comes from AI connecting the right products with the right consumers.
Thanka to Steve Foley, Bulk Memory Cards!
#15- Effective social media strategies
We know that understanding our customers is paramount to running and growing a successful business. In this digital age, technologies that help us measure customer behavior online, and especially on social media, are going to be more important than ever. As consumers, we already know what a massive impact social media has on our everyday lives; everything from the products we buy to our online behavior is affected. But what we may not realize is how massively social media, and understanding how to use it to our advantage, affects our businesses. It doesn't matter if you're already in the influencer marketing game or not; with so much time being spent on social media, brands, agencies, companies, and entrepreneurs are going to need to accurately measure customers' social media habits, affinities and behaviors if they want to develop effective marketing strategies.
Thanks to Kelsey Formost, Tagger Media!