Tech developments that will differentiate failing from thriving businesses this year

Technology is evolving at the speed of light, and so are customers’ needs, expectations, preferences, and requirements. From blockchain to data silos, numerous tech advancements have started differentiating future-oriented businesses that can pass the test of time and those that are fated to be left behind.

There’s no way around it: it’s best to be looking to make the most out of modern tech advancements, so let’s not waste time and see what today’s five most important additions can bring to your business.

Blockchain

Even if most people think of Bitcoin, Ethereum, and other cryptocurrencies when hearing the word “blockchain,” this limitation in knowledge is on the point of vanishing. With the rise of the Ethereum price USD and its real use cases across almost any industry, expect to hear about blockchain more often than before.

Blockchain technology can be straightforwardly described as a tech ledger where you can only introduce data, but never alter, compromise, or remove it, hence the association with a “chain”. One will create rows of data but cannot modify previous blocks, whereas the blockchain’s well-deserved recognition for improving users’ data safety and integrity. Employing blockchain technology in your company will remove the need for an in-betweener to monitor or confirm transactions.

Some industries come of age and introduced blockchain, and considering how quickly its use grows, the same is said about the demand for those knowing how to work with it. Employing skilled individuals who know how to develop and implement blockchain architecture and use related solutions will take the business years ahead of the competition.

Data structures, networking, OOPS fundamentals, programming languages, web app development, and flat and relational databases are some of the areas which once mastered by an employee, the business boosts its chances of remaining efficient in the future.

Big data

You may witness the term “big data” being thrown around a lot, but despite the popularity of the expression’s utilization, not that many large-data businesses understand the role and importance of using it one day. Big data, as the name suggests, refers to colossal amounts of data that a business garners in time – as opposed to small data. Big data spans enormous time frames, is found in huge queried databases, makes storage and organization difficult, and often assists essential long-term decision-making.

A study conducted by Statista in 2021 disclosed that 46% of the respondents employed big data analytics in their market research strategies, and despite a tiny downfall in 2019, the big data adoption trend only went upward. The same tendency can be expected these days, only that the more we see the calendar winding down, the larger the chances that businesses reluctant towards big data techniques employment will be left behind and see their faction of non-adopters shrink.

Interestingly enough, Big Data is often split into four categories, each contributing to forming the four Vs: volume, variety, velocity, and veracity. Businesses looking to pass the test of time are expected to implement big data solutions in their marketing strategies to perfect their decision-making.

AI for tailored customer journeys

As online shopping prevails increasingly more in all sectors, whether you look at appliances, home décor, entertainment, technology, and the list of industries can go on, the same does the requirements for customized consumer journeys. The personalization of customers’ experiences from the moment they access the brand’s website, to the payment processing step, to the door-to-door delivery, pushes businesses to implement all sorts of technologies. Customers want to see work being done the exact way that would create the most comfortable and pleasant shopping experience.

Omni-channel sales, businesses’ implementation of more than one channel for sale like online, in-store, and mobile, is rapidly becoming the criteria that will tell a conversion from a simple click. Businesses will battle for customers and the level of personalization offered to them will weigh significantly, which is where in-depth analytics will throne as the best methods to help enterprises get under customers’ skin to come up with solutions to their needs.

AI will help enterprises tailor sales, promotions, and messages better to suit a broadening and ever-changing consumer category. Consequently, sectors such as retail will be disrupted by VR and AR.

There’ll be endless possibilities for businesses to act on their willingness to provide customers with a more entertaining and memorable experience.

Siloed data integration

In today’s data-fueled world, using accurate data in the process of decision-making is sacrosanct for business leaders. Essentially, remaining competitive in this overfed market goes down to having and using numbers and their capacity to distinguish failing business strategies from winning ones.

During the past years, enterprises have slowly but swiftly turned to data analytics and began making the most of digital insights to keep tabs on the workings of the business. Nevertheless, the sizes, purposes, shades, and forms that data comes in are endless. It can involve human mistakes, obsolete details, and duplicate entries, or be challenging to use due to data silos.

Gaining access to info across more data silos in modern businesses is prone to becoming more and more challenging due to the larger volumes and data sources. Therefore, numerous businesses will opt to give precedence to the inclusion of siloed data to congregate different pieces of digital information. Plus, ground-breaking inventions such as data fabric are stealing the limelight. For the uninitiated, data fabric can be regarded as architecture for data management that improves distributed data, boosting its accessibility in times of need.

As per a 2021 Gartner study, introducing this technology can make data management 70% easier, which was an astonishing number three years ago, so you can imagine what an essentiality it is for businesses today.

Smart contract adoption

If hearing about smart contracts leads you to think of Ethereum or, more broadly, about blockchain technology, then you are one step closer to deciphering their mystery. Their emergence correlates with the Ethereum inception era, and now they are helping businesses in all industries ramp up their contract sealing and application. Since enterprises across all sectors have to work with go-betweens, seeing a large chunk of their money go into the intermediaries’ wallets and watching how their processes are slowed down, it’s clear that anything reducing these hurdles can speed up the endeavors of a business.

In 2024, companies are expected to employ smart contracts to carry out work quicker and more cheaply, thus maximizing business profits and accelerating operations. More exactly, they will resort to this technology to remove intermediaries from the equation and automate some deals’ executions.

Therefore, businesses worldwide will start requiring more transparency, better security, and lower fees for operations conducted with the assistance of go-betweens. On the other hand, they’ll be able to automate some of the expensive, time-consuming operations they’re spending plenty of resources on momentarily. It seems like smart contracts aren’t called this way in vain and that businesses leveraging it will only reap benefits later.

In the context of businesses, the technologies enumerated above are non-negotiables for those looking to survive the competition and remain relevant, so pay heed to the ever-evolving trends.