Technology’s influence on business in 2017

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The economic forecast for 2017 is not looking great according to the majority of economists surveyed by the Financial Times.

Howard Archer, Chief European and UK economist, predicts GDP growth to slow to 1.3% in 2017. He also highlights that “businesses will probably be cautious over investment and employment” due to uncertainty surrounding Brexit and the UK’s future relationships with the EU. Archer does offer a positive from Brexit, with the pound weaker the UK’s export market should do better.

Tim Besley, London School of Economics, estimates modest slowing on the assumption there will be no significant shocks from outside the UK. He does, however, note that the outlooks for China and the US are uncertain.

Technology enablement will be necessary if the economy predictions are accurate then consumers and businesses are less likely to invest in your business; you will need to optimise your use of technology to market yourself and persuade people to use your services.

With Nintendo 3DS, augmented reality (AR) became more accessible; it was, however, the release of Pokémon Go that brought AR to the mainstream. Caspar Thykier, Chief Executive of Zappar, suggests that content creation tools are improving rapidly so much so that you can use them without the need of expert levels of coding. Depending on your business this could make you stand out from the competition as being fun, innovative and technologically advanced.

Voice companions such as Siri, Cortana and Alexa have changed how people access information. With a quick voice command, you can retrieve information from the internet without having to move an inch. The development of voice commands means you’ll have to adapt your content marketing accordingly to compete with others to be read out by voice companions.

With further technological and software development, Customer Relationship Management (CRM) is going to get smarter. According to Daniel Harris, a market researcher at Software Advice, smart data discovery enables machine learning to detect patterns in data and transform them into stories that humans can better understand.

Technology has also changed how people interact and spend on business. For instance, online clothes shopping is heading to 40% growth in demand. And so, if individuals’ spending patterns are changing businesses need to look at how they can receive funding, particularly with predicted caution in investment.

I believe that crowdfunding will play a crucial part in how SMEs receive their funding. From writers, artists, software designers, game developers and funds for cancer treatments all use crowdfunding to generate money with rewards given to patrons. Michael Banks, the founder of fortunateinvestor.com, notes the benefit that crowdfunding could provide to a business: “Crowdfunding platforms allow entrepreneurs to easily validate and fund a new product while growing their customer base.”

 

Rachel Campbell is our Junior Office Administrator; you can visit her profile account here.