In this century, the question isn’t how much can technology improve your business but is it possible to conduct business without relying heavily on technology? Here are some current and near-future technology applications that will improve businesses – including yours.
Faster, More Comprehensive Communication
Sometimes, radical improvements in communication made possible by the internet and associated devices – such as laptops and smart phones – can become so sophisticated as to become oppressive. Nobody needs 200 business emails a day. Nevertheless, once you organize your communication tactics and strategies around these available communication resources, things will move faster. They’ll also move more reliably, via apps that timestamp the opening of emails to clients and they’ll do so at a lower cost, once you beat back your cell phone provider’s monthly charges, that is – or you move to a lower cost provider, as rates continue to fall.
Increased Use of “The Cloud”
Recently, high-tech communication possibilities have been further enhanced by the increased use of “the cloud” as a communication resource. For example, film or music producers in different cities can simultaneously work on a single project simultaneously that’s available to both of them via the cloud. Expert surgeons already oversee surgical operations on other continents via virtual operating theaters. Eventually, medical procedures that are entirely machine-driven can be supervised virtually from anywhere in the world, from a single physical operating theater.
New Communications Technologies
As computer processing speeds and storage capabilities continue to increase, new communication technologies will arise. Emerging virtual presence technologies will make it easier and more effective for executives, speakers, coaches and technologists of every kind to make virtual presentations anywhere around the globe, with all the advantages of physical presence but without the limitations.
Resource Management and Efficiency
These same communication technologies are already changing resource management and eventually will radically restructure how we work. Today, a single operator can deploy various military resources all over the globe. Tomorrow, a single operator will be able control and supervise fleets of unmanned transport vehicles at lower cost, with higher reliability and lower accident rates.
Similarly, experts can be virtually deployed almost instantly to solve production and other problems anywhere in the world. Amazon’s much-touted drone program not only has regulatory and legal issues to face, but also the practical, every day problem of pets, children, and – most importantly, getting them to stay in the air long enough to fly long distances, according to a 2016 Gartner report published in The New York Times. But The Times also stated that a future of autonomous drones is much closer than a future of self-driving cars.
Labor Cost Savings
The most significant emerging technologies already changing the way we work are in automation and automated learning. Tesla’s production plant for its new Model 3 electric passenger vehicle has very few workers, and they’re largely there to observe and – when necessary – correct or modify a production process. Most of the work is done via machines that communicate directly with one another.
In recent years, one of the most promising fields for young workers has been in computer programming and coding. In 2019, at least 25 million programmers are working globally. It’s nearly certain that in the near future, programming and coding jobs will increase, but gradually, computers will begin to program other computers or they will reprogram themselves. Futurists predict that eventually most humans will not work for a living.
Safety Advantages Through Technology
One of the more remarkable increases in worker safety during the past 50 years has been in the inherently risky business of automobile racing. In the 1950s, there were five Formula One fatalities. Although there were many more Formula One events in the 1990s, there were only two fatalities during the entire decade.
The technological innovations that drove down the fatality rate in Formula One racing made automobiles safer, generally. The advent of the driver-less automobile will surely reduce fatality rates further – computers don’t get drunk and drive, they have no interest in showing off and they exist only to concentrate on their primary task. The increased safety of highway travel globally – beyond lowering fatality rates and making traveling safer, will also lower insurance rates and will generally reduce the cost of business-related transport.
