The time to think about the impact of technology on your workplace is here. Take a minute and think about what tech you used in the past and what you haven’t used recently. Let that sink in, think about how rapidly the tech world is moving. Keeping up with technology as an organisation is crucial now more than ever.
Experts at Grayce UK believe that the Fourth Industrial Revolution will have huge changes when operating with work colleagues and the working environment. Nobody for sure knows what the future holds, but we sure can analyse the present to predict the future.
Grayce UK predict that voice based tech will be what is coming in the future. Half of the teenage population are now using voice as a search mechanism on their devices. This highlights the demand for flexibility and mobility from employers, especially amongst millennials as discussed in our previous blog.
For the sake of future success, we as individuals must learn to keep up and move with technology changes. Research gathered shows that by 2020, yes in less than 3 years, the average person will be using up their time more with a bot than with their partner! Talk about robot takeover. It is straightforward that these trends will require organisations to continue growing in a smart way to keep up with changes.
It’s not just statistics – when was the last time you used a fax machine? Or when was the last time you saw anybody really using desktop computers at work? People have moved on to more on the go technology such as laptops and mobile phones. That being said, PGi conducted a survey of their US customers back in January 2016 with 420 individuals responding. The survey showed that the most wanted tech of the year was smart furniture (50%), with 44% preferring collaboration tools, 38% of individuals workers wanted cloud-based sharing applications and a final 27% voted for intelligent automation tools.
Our everyday lifestyles are starting to significantly impact company cultures and infrastructures. For example, as technology grows and evolves the relationship between our work life and private life, the demand for flexibility will start being met. This is something the future generation of employees will require as a must have. JLL (a corporate property management company) predicts that by 2030, at least 30% of corporate portfolios will show flexible space. Moreover, having connectivity such as fast speed internet or the ability to come back from a network problem is a must have. Due to more and more services and applications being available via the cloud, organisations are depending much more on the infrastructure of their communication services and the resistance to problems.
Data is clearly a major topic when looking at how technology will shape our workplace. The future generation of Building Management Systems (BMS) gives companies the ability to use data to secure the link between the performance of a building and meeting business objectives. Tech in the future will remould the workplace drastically in ways that sensors will operate to put together data of a building’s space usage, which will then present peoples work and behaviour patterns.
IoT and “Beacon” technology is a good example of this type of data derived from technology. “Beacons” utilize extraordinarily composed radio waves that can go up to 70 meters to send signs to cell phones, utilizing Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) innovation. The signal at that point approaches a CRM database with day by day reports of client’s diverse profiles in this manner can send customized offers to clients in light of their past purchasing conduct. We have already seen beacon technology being used in a retail environment, for example Apple iBeacon technology where they use it for sending order and repair completion notifications, Genius Bar appointment notifications and much more. Virgin Airlines more recently have started using is for notifying customers about in-flight entertainment, currency rates, offers and promotions.
So, how will beacon technology be implanted in the workplace? Well in general, workplaces will be able to work more efficiently and cost efficiently. With this technology, workplace conference rooms will have a massive improvement by allowing each user to know when each room is available and who is in that room by using an app. Additionally, Beacons will control rooms by turning on the lights when you need them and off when you don’t. Since any PC gadget can work as a Beacon, closeness to the unit will be sufficient to start your PC when you approach, and close it down or password shield it when you step far from your work area. This technology that is quickly moving into our world will be a huge improvement to the workplace. Not only will it allow people to work more efficiently but it will also save money and ensure security.
Our future, of technology being in control is quickly arriving, so strap up and keep up! Technology will only keep evolving and in order to be successful so must we. At Channel Tools, we consider ourselves pioneers in technology. With close relationships with IoT companies and our own mobile app development team, we can help you reach the level of technology-sophistication required to keep up in this fast-paced world we live in.
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