Top Tech Trend Predictions for Business in 2018

Top Tech Trend Predictions for Business in 2018

The pace of technology is dizzying.

If you’re like most executives, you don’t have the time to navigate this ever-changing landscape, and to anticipate what it all means for your business. Fortunately, we do!

To help you stay ahead of the curve, we’ll work through our top tech predictions for 2018 below.

What should our businesses expect to see from technology in 2018?

Here’s what’s on the horizon this calendar year:

    1. More and more of us will implement social software platforms. Tools like Slack and Microsoft Teams will become a welcome alternative to email communication. These software packages mimic social media, and do wonders to streamline internal communication and facilitate effective collaboration.
    2. We’ll shift our attention to attracting and retaining millennials. Millennials already make up the majority of the U.S. workforce, and their numbers will only increase over time. 1/3 of this group values mobility over flexibility when accepting jobs, and 95% say that occasionally working from home is important to them. Businesses looking to attract top young talent will assess their technology through this lens.
    3. We’ll wield LinkedIn as a powerful tool for recruitment and brand awareness. LinkedIn boasts 500 million users across the globe. Now that Microsoft has taken control of the platform and given it a facelift, we expect business owners to start paying attention to its potential, and leveraging it in their recruitment and sales efforts.
    4. You’ll see more tablets in your meetings. Microsoft’s Surface will continue gaining ground, as will lower-cost “clone” devices that rival the Surface in capability. As we become increasingly mobile as a workforce, more of us will opt for tablets over laptops for how portable and discreet these devices are.
    5. The cloud will get more secure and more specialized. Businesses are comfortable with the cloud now; rather than asking what “the cloud” is, businesses are digging into more sophisticated elements like security and compliance and collaboration. Providers will respond by stepping their game up in these areas.
    6. A couple of your staff might start talking to their desks. With the advent of Alexa for Business, voice command technology will start making an appearance in the workplace. We don’t expect this to explode in popularity, but we do expect early adopters to begin experimenting with how these tools can impact productivity.
    7. IT services will, unfortunately, get worse. We’re seeing a LOT of M&A activity in our industry as firms seek to offer all things tech to their clients (phone systems, copiers, cybersecurity, etc.). Already there are signs that service delivery will take a hit as these firms focus most of their energy on integrating.

What do you think? Have you already taken measures to address some of our predictions listed above? Are there other trends that our businesses should be on the lookout for? Let’s chat about it!

 

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