In a world of constant technological advancement and evolution, it is a challenge for most businesses to stay up to date with the current business technology trends. The importance of moving forward with technology cannot be overemphasized especially with how interrelated business and technology has suddenly become. According to a report by the UK Office for National Statistics, ICT has played a huge role in driving e-commerce and the business world as a whole.
With the large number of technological tools currently available and the new inventions that are still being churned out, it might be quite daunting to stay informed about what’s new and what’s not. It would seem frustrating to invest in tools that are supposed to make your work easier, only to discover that something new has been created for the same purpose.
Some technological business tools have been around for more than five years and now might be the time to switch them for a newer upgrade. Here are some business technologies that have become obsolete and how you can upgrade to keep your business moving with the times:
- Desktop PCs: The development of smart phones, laptops and tablets has had a huge impact on the need for desktop computers. These days, people do not need to be in an actual physical location to carry out business. In fact, they carry their business everywhere with them thanks to smart phones and tablets which serve most of the functions you would originally rely on your desktop PC for.
- Printers: The new wave of smart phones and tablets which has everyone doing business on-the-go has also eliminated the need for people to print actual copies of documents. Electronic signatures and storage (these devices mostly come with high storage space) has almost eradicated the need for people to print out documents. 3D-printers, however, seem to be the future of printing with reports showing a 52% percent year-on-year growth in their volume sales.
- In-House Servers: The use of in-house servers; which are a group of computers connected in a network, is slowly being replaced with cloud computing. Asides the fact that cloud computing does all the storage and processing of data that servers do, it also serves so many other functions that makes it much more advanced. Businesses which adopt flexible cloud computing are most likely to outshine their competition.
- Landlines And Phone Extensions: We have definitely come a long way from landlines with the advent of mobile phones. These days most businesses link company mobile phones to virtual switchboards which perform well regardless of weather, time or geo-location constraints.
- Digital Cameras: Many smart phones and other devices come with inbuilt camera options which have gradually replaced the need for digital cameras. More businesses do not feel the need to invest in digital cameras when they already have devices which can serve the same function; this has resulted in a serious decline in the sales of digital cameras since 2010. No matter what type of business you operate, you need visuals in form of images and videos for advertisement and other reasons.
If your business still makes use of some or all of these tools, you should consider upgrading so you don’t get left behind.