
COVID-19 left a bitter taste in everybody’s mouth, but it did accelerate the tech innovation process.
As a result, every passing day, we come across a new technology that can potentially change our lives for good. Thus, the pandemic has reshaped our entire digital ecosystem as a whole. Due to such a thing, our life’s perspective has changed, and we are constantly searching to improve our productivity levels through technology. After all, what good is technology if it cannot benefit its user?
More businesses are jumping on the bandwagon and incorporating technology into their everyday operations to go digital and stay three steps ahead of their competitors in such unprecedented times. Indeed, our future is digital and will continue to benefit us in more ways than anyone can imagine. This article will examine whether technology will prove beneficial or detrimental for us as we look to survive the onslaught that COVID-19 has left on us.
1. More Job Opportunities Will Open Up
Communication is more diverse than ever in 2021. Whether you’re conveying an organization’s brand message to the masses or having a personal discussion with your colleagues, family, and friends, certain advances in technology have made it a whole lot easier to do so. After all, digital media dominates how individuals share and receive information from one another.
As online media and the internet continues to dominate in a covid ridden world, more and more job openings are available to individuals who hold a degree in digital media. Furthermore, the amount of information consumption is enormous, and individuals who have such a degree can fulfill the roles of an editor or writer to keep everybody well-informed about the recent pandemic.
2. 5G Will Become More Popular
There has been a lot of hype around 5G and its impact on the digital world. However, it wasn’t until 2021 that the interest started to pick up among the masses. Given that remote-working and videoconferencing are now an essential part of our lives, the need for a super fast and reliable digital connection has become more critical than ever. In fact, according to Gartner, there will be more than one billion active 5G users by 2023.
While telecom companies look to move ahead and venture into the world of 5G connectivity, its deployment will benefit companies that regularly use customer data platforms, IoT, and Artificial intelligence, resulting in better customer insights such as preferences, behaviors, and needs.
3. Digital Health Is On The Rise
The COVID-19 pandemic revealed our healthcare system’s fragility. In fact, our healthcare sector suffered the most because of the pandemic. However, telehealth came to the rescue as it offered people a way to receive treatment without ever leaving the comfort of their homes, preventing the risk of COVID-19 infection. Simply put, the digital health market had a worth of 88 billion dollars in 2018. However, experts believe the market will grow to around 500 billion dollars by 2025. In 2021, digital health solutions are becoming more scalable, affordable, and accessible. That said, digital healthcare’s effectiveness depends on our ability to embrace technology.
4. HR Tech And Remote Work
Employee experience in 2021 majorly depends on long-term remote work, and an organization’s success will depend on its openness to invest in HR technologies and crisis management strategies. According to Forrester’s research, remote work, automation, and HR technologies will flourish in 2021.
The same research suggests that only one-third of companies have a way to measure employee experience through surveys. After all, they have to keep their employees satisfied for an organization to survive today, even if they’re working from home. In fact, in 2021, managing employee experience and improving it will be just as crucial as customer experience.
5. Rise In Cryptocurrency Usage And Blockchain Technology
The cryptocurrency market has an estimated value of around 265 billion dollars. 2021 is the year that cryptocurrency holds the same value, if not more, than actual cold hard cash. So, expect a rise in cryptocurrency users in the next couple of years, although it’s around 40 million in 2021.
Both blockchain technology and cryptocurrency will shine through when customers make online purchases and as more and more businesses ditch brick and mortar stores and paper money due to the risk of COVID-19 infection.
6. The Popularity Of Customer Data Platforms Will Increase
In the past few months, we’ve seen a rise in the popularity, adoption, and development of CDP (customer data platforms). Since companies couldn’t benefit from fragmented data stored at various places, they required a curated data on an individual platform. In fact, according to multiple studies, companies lose around 3 trillion dollars due to corrupted, insufficient data.
To ensure that these organizations make sound, data-backed decisions, CDP allows them to gather data from multiple sources, label it, and organize it, making it usable for company decision-makers. 2021 is the year where we’ll see a drastic rise in CDP usage as companies cannot afford to lose money during such bad economic and financial times.
7. Distributed Cloud-Based Technologies Will Dominate
Cloud technology is capturing the market by storm. More than 90 percent of today’s organizations utilize cloud-based technologies in one way or another in their business operations. In addition, 60 percent of all work happens on cloud platforms. As the name suggests, distributed cloud-based technology involves allocating cloud services by their physical locations via public cloud-service providers.
In 2021, such a cloud-based technology will see an increase in popularity and usage for its numerous benefits, including lowered data costs, less latency, and lower physical proximity. Without a doubt, distributed cloud technology is the way of the future, and the future is now!
Conclusion
Despite little to no knowledge of how 2021 will pan out, one thing is for sure. Technology will reign supreme in the next few years. As several businesses are under financial pressure to search for new customers and retain their existing ones, digital solutions such as cloud-based technologies, HR technology, and remote work will play an essential role in ensuring their survival. In the end, the sooner we adopt digitalization into our everyday lives, the better it will be for us.