Knowing the latest trends will help keep your company updated and prepared for the rigorous year ahead.
Exiting Out of COVID-19
The lucky companies that survived COVID-19 are most likely still facing difficulties as they struggle to form a new sense of normalcy after working on a different schedule – but for businesses, now is the best time to begin work on an exit strategy that helps make the most of the post-pandemic. Global research and advisory firm, Gartner, have suggested three major steps that can not only negotiate the abruptly shifting market of the US and Canada, but optimize it for a rocket to the top.
- Respond – What most companies have already done; the immediate response in a crisis is to limit the pain of a bleeding business and to keep the company as safe as possible.
- Recover – An organized and coordinated effort to identify the main issues that need to be addressed. Canada is currently at this stage.
- Renew – An extended period with durable execution across the company. During this period, the company examines methods of operation that could work best in the long term to prevent the previous crisis from occurring again.
Following the trend of preparing for the end of COVID-19 could prime your business for a boom in growth in the coming months.
Artificial Intelligence Growth
Growing businesses are seeking out new methods of innovation across industries for optimizing existing systems, succeeding over new challenges, and growing their systems with economic and technological benefit. Machine learning drives innovation across many industries, and factories are starting to integrate it into all branches of assembly.
Artificial Intelligence is leading the charge on developing manufacturing facilities in Industry 4.0, but they are also growing in other sectors as well. As for office work, Artificial Intelligence has been integrated with document retrieval, predictive maintenance, generative design, cognitive computing, and context-aware computing. Time is cut drastically as Artificial Intelligence grows, allowing for more focus on larger-scope projects that can grow the company further.
Ramping up Cyber Security
Cyberattacks in recent months on key infrastructure, such as the colonial pipeline, have heavily influenced the already-growing industry of Cyber security. Industry 4.0 requires the flow of information to optimize its effectiveness, but this puts it at constant risk of exploitation from outside sources interested in holding internal data for ransom. Sometimes this risk is focused on consumer information, sometimes on the infrastructure itself, and sometimes on key data generated by the company. Regardless, the transmission and processing of data requires more protection than ever, and many companies are seeking software that encrypt this information well for peace of mind.
Blockchain, end-to-end communication security, privacy-enhancing technologies, and self-adaptive security all have seen a lot of promise as the fear of Cyberattacks grow. AI and security also have promise as it is often human error that leads to a Cyber Security risk. Sadly, it seems Cyberattacks for now are here to stay, but that means innovation in the Cyber Security industry will continue to grow.
Using ERP Software for Security
ERP software has cemented itself in the business world as a digital staple of optimizing and expanding a company. Whether it be optimization, security, document management and more, ERPs have proven to be not only beneficial to a growing company in the Industry 4.0 era, but almost a necessity for keeping costs low while simultaneously seeing major growth.
COVID-19 and Cyber Security has fundamentally changed the way that businesses approach internal affairs. Making an internal system to match that just makes sense.
