These 6 tech trends are key to your brand keeping up in 2016

Looking ahead to a money-filled year

I’m in line the other day at Starbucks to get my fix, when I notice the woman in the very front holding the line up showing off her watch to the cashier. I, and a bunch of other Starbucks addicts got annoyed with the woman – I mean, who’s insane enough to hold up a group of friends to talk about some watch?

But soon after, our frustration turns to awe, when we watch her pay for her entire Starbucks order with this watch. I watched first hand as technology bridged the gap between new tech and business processes or, The Apple Watch and Starbucks. Imagine had she attempted to pay, but Starbucks didn’t support the technology yet; that could’ve been a potentially lost customer.

Knowing that makes it critical for businesses to stay up to date and on top of the new tech developments. Some have done an excellent job developing their processes just as quickly as technology develops, while there are still some entities struggling to evolve and stay informed on what’s going on in the tech world. These are the businesses that risk being forgotten or replaced.

But, if they can embrace and incorporate the following six technology trends then they have a chance of keeping their customer base and staying afloat.

Trend #1: Embrace new forms of payment

Easier payments: remember when some businesses didn’t even accept credit cards? Now, such a business would be considered primitive. Especially now that you can walk into businesses like Best Buy, target, and Starbucks to pay for electronics, groceries, paper, egg nog lattes and whatever else you need.

Businesses everywhere are embracing this trend, making payments as simple as a watch swipe, and providing invoices/receipts to your email before you can even blink.

While only 17 percent of consumers say they pay using a smartphone, according to a study by creditcard.com, industry experts still have high hopes for the mobile pay industry. Research firm, Gartner, predicts the industry will be worth $270 billion in transactions by 2017, up from $235 billion in 2014. This is understandable when you consider Google just adopted Softcard, Samsung provides Samsung pay, PayPal has Padiant, and Apple of course offers Apple Pay. Merchants accepting these options are also growing beyond just Starbucks and Best Buy.

That billion dollar prediction, along with the abundance of technologies and merchants investing in the mobile pay industry, makes easier payment a huge upcoming trend.

Trend #2: Security is a must

Security becomes nonnegotiable: remember in October when Experian accidentally exposed the private data of 15 million T mobile users? They aren’t the only ones slacking in the security department. Nearly 5,000 other company data breaches have compromised over 800 million records, including medical histories, Social Security numbers, and bank day; all since 2005.

These massive security breaches keep happening because email is not really that secure, employees mobile devices aren’t really that protected and systems are not always as encrypted as they’d like to believe. White Hat, a security company, released a report back in 2015 that revealed 86% of all websites tested had at least one serious vulnerability (and sometimes more).

With the huge liability breached information presents; businesses are now developing more secure websites, making sure there are no vulnerabilities, no holes, and no chance for customer information (or any information, for that matter) to leak.

Therefore, one of the biggest and latest trends in business right now is making sure all systems are appropriately protected. This has started to happen with better encryption, new cloud solutions, and enterprise mobility management for mobile devices.

Trend #3: Your brand needs to be on mobile

According to a study done by comScore, 11.3% of all Internet users rely on their mobile device to surf the web and that number is only growing.

Because of this we will start to see more click – to – call buttons embedded directly into apps.

Now, when a customer is using a particular app and they have a question, instead of leaving the app to find the customer service number, they can just click a button and be connected directly to a customer service rep. So any troubleshooting questions, user issues, products inquiries, and anything else you use customer service for can be accessed directly from the app.

The best example of this trend can be observed from Amazon Kindle devices that offer its customers what’s called “mayday”. With “mayday”, users can simply click a button for an almost instant connection with a customer service rep,  at anytime of the day. Bank of America has also followed suit, and now offers customers a “teller assist” Option on their ATM machines. This service allows consumers to connect with a bank teller via live video chat if they have any problems at the ATM.

Initially this embedded communication technology was reserved for large corporations that could afford it. However, new companies are starting to develop embedded communication at more affordable and accessible prices.

Trend #4: Smart devices and the Internet of Things

Rolls-Royce, along with other aircraft manufacturers have begun building aircraft with sensors embedded within them.

These sensors take the guesswork and time out of physically searching a plane for malfunctions.

They can detect if anything has started to break down and gives aircrafts the ability to avoid possible accidents and fatalities by sending these updates directly to the ground station.

This kind of real-time update from the actual device is becoming more popular as technology develops. Now, inventory can self-report on its levels, trucks can self-track, and products can notify the company when there’s a problem.

In order to stay relevant, businesses should figure out how to take advantage of these real-time update devices, and see how they can incorporate them into their current technology infrastructure.

Trend #5: Employees with wearables

What about the employees who receive these real-time updates from the aforementioned devices? How do they receive the information? It certainly wouldn’t be right if they were receiving these updates on a basic, technologically ancient computer. No, instead businesses are testing out wearables to receive the data, so employees can have real-time access to real-time updates. Some companies use them for inventory updates while others use them internally for employee interaction; the options for wearables within a business setting are endless.

If a businesses values accurate feedback and real-time updates, complying with this trend is critical.

They need to start figuring out which wearable device is best for them, how to incorporate it, and the best way to synchronize it with their existing software.

Trend #6: Keep it in the cloud

Business clouds allow seamless and constant connectivity and can be seen functioning in about 93% of existing business, according to a cloud survey conducted by Right Scale. The 7% who haven’t adapted are expected to incorporate this trend no later than this year – or else they risk being left behind.

There are plenty of other technology trends businesses need in order to stay relevant, however these six are the most important as they are the most unique, and revolutionized. Businesses should definitely take notes, and begin strategizing on how they can incorporate these practices.

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