Working for a company that provides technology solutions means that it’s important for me to keep on top of technology trends. One clear way to do this is to look at current All Covered clients to see what challenges have been top of mind over the last year and to determine what services have been paramount to ongoing operations. The other valuable way is to look to industry leaders, such as Gartner.
I recently wrote the eBook (along with some very talented people here in the Konica Minolta marketing department), 10 Technologies Driving the Workplace of the Future™, and I knew I had to streamline intelligence from these various sources in order to make this eBook both accurate and interesting. In writing it, here are some of the most interesting developments I noticed:
Businesses want (and need) processes to be increasingly “smart.” From a simple profit standpoint, this makes total sense. Businesses want to assure that their resources – from employees to computers and servers – are being utilized efficiently. Companies also want to receive the best data they can on what is and isn’t working for them. That’s why I knew it was important to talk about both customer relationship management and business intelligence as well as digital ecosystems as technologies driving the Workplace of the Future. It’s clear that information gathering and sharing can empower a business if done properly – through solutions like robust, custom CRM solutions – as well as encouraging a connection between your products and services and your employees – allowing for smart decision-making.
Collaboration and mobility are key. As I looked at the importance of a digital ecosystem, I found this also meant more than simply encouraging employees to share data and business goals. To truly empower employees, elements of collaboration and mobility became clearly important pieces of the puzzle. A trend over the past few years has been companies shifting more and more to mobile workforces. Research firm Strategy Analytics found that 42% of companies will utilize a mobile workforce by 2020. With the success of our own All Covered Workspaces virtual desktop solution, I knew I needed to include mobility solutions in the eBook. In order to enable these solutions to work effectively, I knew I wanted to cover advanced collaborative tools. From telepresence robots (like Double Robotics) to tools such as FileAssist and SharePoint, it’s clearly important, especially with a mobile workforce, to make sure collaboration takes place intelligently and cost-effectively.
Security must be a cornerstone of business. I continued to think about cost effectiveness. I thought about the sheer number of large data breaches that have occurred in the past year, in addition to new, proactive methods in operating efficiently. 2016 was a banner year for large-scale hacks. LinkedIn, Tumblr, Yahoo, Verizon and even the federal government were all victims of cybersecurity breaches. When you consider that Forbes reports the average cyberattack costs a company $15.6 million, it becomes clear: implementing or assuring a strong, advanced security solution now will assure your company survives in an increasingly dangerous cyber environment. Of course, there are other solutions that can also save companies money. Office management tools have grown to the point where most tasks can be made more efficient through the use of technology, but with the rise of IoT (Internet of Things) companies need to think of security as a core pillar in the way they do business. No longer can it be an afterthought but rather, it needs to be a staple in planning their overall technology strategy. Konica Minolta is positioned to take advantage of this by offering a variety of security offerings, including advanced security services from All Covered and Mobotix video security solutions coming this year. It’s exciting to see us positioned as a leader in security.
At the end of my research, as I put this eBook together, it became clear to me: there is no one solution that will suddenly help businesses. It’ll take a combination of technologies to give businesses a competitive edge. It makes me proud that both Konica Minolta and All Covered are striving to provide all the technology solutions a business will need to stay competitive well into the future – and I’m eager to see what the future will bring.
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