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11 Small Business Tech Trends Of 2024

As an entrepreneur or small business owner, you may not be at the forefront of developing technology, but tech still plays a vital role in your business’s growth and efficiency. Given how much things have changed in the past year, small business technology trends will only become more important throughout 2024.

While new infrastructure like 5G will continue to gain traction, established markets such as employee monitoring software will also have a greater impact on small businesses. In addition to investigating the latest tech trends among small companies, we asked some leading tech experts and small business owners for their thoughts. Here are 11 small business tech trends for 2024 and beyond.

 

4. Remote onboarding will be perfected.

As more businesses embrace the hybrid working model (and the potential savings that stem from shedding office space and freeing up employee commuting time for additional work), they will rely more on technology to handle a successful onboarding process for remote employees.

Onboarding is integral to hiring new employees as you get them up to speed with their responsibilities and the company culture. Without the ability to connect in person, either because of the pandemic or their location, companies are turning to software for onboarding.

“Technology that ensures every step of the onboarding experience is planned and orchestrated professionally will help companies make sure their new team members feel welcome,” said Staples. “Companies will invest more in technology that helps people understand who’s who in the company [and] familiarize themselves with the relevant connections they need to make outside of their immediate team.”

 

5. Tech-assisted retail shopping will expand.

In a bid to cut costs and boost profitability, major retailers have been accelerating their rollout of mobile and social media shopping to create a contactless shopping experience. Small businesses will begin to follow suit as the price point on some of these technologies becomes more manageable.

Mobile payments have grown to include QR codes, mobile terminals and mobile wallets. Shoppers are increasingly comfortable with these ways to shop and pay, making them viable investments for small businesses with limited staff.

“Mobile payments used to be a nice-to-have that brought the convenience of avoiding long checkout lines to shoppers in crowded stores,” Staples said. “But now … they’re almost a baseline requirement for most retailers.”

 

6. Superapps will emerge as the next generation of business software.

Gartner predicts that 2024 will usher in the start of widespread development and use of what it dubs superapps. These apps will allow for the combination and unification of disparate app services into one easy to use interface. Small businesses can benefit from using these apps to better streamline operations for employees and vendors.

Additionally, we’re seeing increasing adoption of third-party software integrations. Today, a company might use Slack to connect teams, Outlook to send important documents, Salesforce to manage customers, Monday.com to plan projects, and Google Drive to store company information. Data silos are a significant threat that unification helps to mitigate and minimize.

“Connecting software to work with other software is hard,” said Roy Mann, CEO and co-founder of Monday.com. “There is going to be a breakthrough with integration platforms that will allow any software to connect well with any other software.”

He predicts that such connections will link multiple platforms and allow seamless communication. For example, he said, customer information will change simultaneously across platforms if it’s adjusted in one platform. This unification saves businesses time.

 

7. There will be an increased focus on cybersecurity.

The shift to new working practices has spawned new forms of fraud, with malware evolving in response to greater virtual communication and the rising domestic use of workplace hardware.

However, this sense of risk hasn’t trickled down to businesses. According to research from BullGuard, nearly 60 percent of small businesses think it’s unlikely they will be targeted in a cyberattack. However, cybersecurity company Check Point found global cyberattacks in the third quarter of 2022 were 28 percent higher than in the same period in 2021. Year over year, North America saw a 47 percent increase in total attack volume. Small businesses are not immune to cyber attacks either, as cloud security company Barracuda found small businesses were three times more likely to be targeted in phishing attacks than enterprise-sized businesses.

Jim Lippie, CEO of SaaS Alerts, said SMBs should start viewing security through the lens of enterprise businesses.

“SMBs, like their large enterprise counterparts, will lock down on a comprehensive backup-and-disaster-recovery solution to keep protected, and also form new standardized blocking and tackling game plans to keep the business even more safe.”

 

Looking forward to the future of tech

Tech trends can shift rapidly based on a multitude of factors, including the state of the economy, the availability of skilled labor and user response to the deployment of technologies. With that in mind, be aware that the outlined technologies are likely to continue to grow throughout the year and into the coming years based on their increasing adoption, return on investment, and consumer behavior. While most tech trends will be spearheaded by larger, enterprise organizations, small businesses can benefit as technology becomes more widespread and, ultimately, cheaper to implement.

Source: https://www.businessnewsdaily.com/10469-business-technology-trends.html

Armco IT – IT Services, Support and Solutions for North and East Yorkshire Businesses

Based in Malton, we provide proactive IT support and services throughout Yorkshire, covering York, North, and East Yorkshire. With a proven track record across various sectors like manufacturing, design, professional medical services, and insurance, we excel in delivering impactful IT solutions. Our focus is on maintaining, optimizing, and securing your digital infrastructure, allowing you to prioritize your business’s growth and success. Reach out to our team today to initiate our collaboration.

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