Software & programming advances continue to change the way society & business function on an almost day to day basis
t is no secret that we are all connected to technology in some way or another & a vast majority through social media stories & applications. However, software advances continue to change the way society & business function on an almost day to day basis. Data collection & harvest, multi layered Ai, VR/AR, The Cloud, Dropbox; these are just some of the ever increasing applications & software which drive modern businesses.
Microsoft Office has been one of the biggest innovations for users since it’s inception in 1990 & has rapidly become an industry standard. Offices, organisations, schools, colleges, hospitals, small & corporate businesses across the globe have taken advantage of the format to enable their businesses to flourish & Microsoft has cashed in on this over the years with upgrades & ever increasing programming augmentations.
However, times are changing & with that, so is the way that businesses use software & programming tailored to their own needs & functions. Over the next few weeks, Virtually Smart Ltd will be investigating how software applications are used by specific companies, their application & how this helps drive their businesses forward & assists them on a daily basis. Today we will touch the surface of what trends are surfacing for businesses in 2018 & how some of these may be game changers.
Data collection & harvest.
In light of the new GDPR law coming in to force on 25 May, all businesses should now be more savvy about the way they collate & store data. Taking advantage of software applications which are already GDPR compliant is one step forward. However, there are a lot of businesses who are going to take some time to break old habits when it comes to storing data. Using Cloud applications & Dropbox for example, will ensure data is stored safely. Of course as with anything there are pro’s & con’s to using these systems.
Cloud benefits.
The benefit of using the cloud to store data is that is allows complete flexibility as the data can be accessed and managed from anywhere. In addition, using Cloud based applications, means you will always be using the most up to date versions of the software; ensuring reliability is constantly being measured & transformed by the programming.
Cloud drawbacks.
Using Cloud applications means you are reliant on the third party’s security. Ensuring their security systems are GDPR complaint is your responsibility.
AI & Virtual Assistants.
One of the many ways households are being transformed is with the use of AI (Virtual Assistants). Siri, Cortana & Alexa are now commonplace platforms & their dulcet tones have already become an integral part of modern dialogue. But how can these forms of AI help businesses & how reliant should we be, without resorting to some element of personal research? and is there a possibility of these applications becoming self-aware, as is the case with true AI?
“Today, AI assistants are primarily an additional route to information gathering and can complete simple tasks within set criteria. In order to become truly intelligent, they need to fully understand the user and user intuition.”
“Today, Google Assistant is probably the most advanced, mostly because it’s a lot further down the line and more developed in terms of use cases and personalization. Whereas Alexa relies on custom build ‘skills’, Google Assistant can understand specific user requests and personalize the response.” www.gearbrain.com
One key area companies can incorporate AI in their businesses, is through their CRM strategy & in particular through marketing.
‘Small enterprises can use even modest budgets effectively with AI solutions for marketing. Small businesses can entrust their marketing campaigns to such AI-powered platforms as Acquisio, which manages marketing operations across multiple channels (e.g Adwords, Facebook, Bing), analyzing advertising performance and making informed suggestions about the best budget distributions in terms of PPC (pay per click).
Using AI marketing solutions, small companies can find the best marketing strategy and dramatically reduce their CPC (cost per click) thanks to the sentiment analysis algorithms that analyze customer engagement with their marketing campaigns.’ www.entrepreneur.com
Small businesses can capitalise on this use of AI, by incorporating key words & phrases in their marketing strategies & online presence. This in turn of course will help the Virtual Assistants target explicit word chains to guide them to a specific business. Focusing on website & social media content has never been more important when it comes to search engines & AI search parameters.
Over the next few weeks Virtually Smart Ltd will be reviewing & researching how software applications make an impact on businesses & how advances in programming are changing lives on a daily basis.
