How many new year’s resolutions did you set this year? With 2020 officially underway, how many are still intact? Aside from the common self-improvement, weight loss, and money management goals, business resolutions are an equally important component of new-year planning – particularly for software.

If you didn’t set any business goals for the new year, here are some hot-button topics of 2020 that have industries buzzing, and businesses thinking ahead.

Improved Cybersecurity 

Regardless of device, an important goal this year should be improved cybersecurity. From manufacturing equipment to business software, to smart home devices, nobody wants prying eyes having access to their technology. Whether by improving the security of a current system, purchasing a new one or developing one from the ground up, organizations should be looking for ways to keep their proprietary data safely hidden from those with malicious intent.

2019 was a massive year for cybersecurity breaches. According to Norton, there was a 54% increase in the number of reported breaches vs. the first 6 months of 2018. In today’s ecosystem of interconnectivity, it is important to keep in mind that software is only as strong as its weakest link. In other words, your systems can not only act as pathways to other facets of your organization, but to your clients data as well. You don’t want to be like Capital One, who found themselves in a tight spot after they experienced a system hack that resulted in over 6 million Canadian customers’ personal data being stolen.

There are a variety of tactics you can employ to make your software more secure overall, such as:

1. Keep Up With Software Updates
2. Encrypt Your Data
3. Control Access & Permissions

Just to name a few. For more simple tactics you can employ to help make your databases more secure, check out one of our past blogs. You would be surprised what small changes can go a long way in keeping your sensitive information safe and secure in the face of growing security threats.

Data Mobility

Sometimes you just need to connect your data to your team, regardless of where you are. With advancing technologies, it has never been easier to mobilize your workforce, as well as mobile-optimize your software. It has also never been more important, as the world is shifting to a mobile-first approach to business and marketing. For example, Google has transitioned to mobile-first indexing, meaning “Google is crawling and indexing your web page based on how it renders on a mobile phone versus a desktop computer”. So, from a marketing perspective, businesses must focus on having a mobile-optimized online presence to maintain a good organic search engine ranking.

If you’re considering building a new, mobilized system, developments in progressive-web app (PWA) capabilities enable organizations to access their vital company data from any device, anywhere in the world. Progressive web apps are also less complex to develop and maintain when compared to conventional mobile applications. PWA’s combine the best of both worlds of mobile websites and native applications, making them a logical objective for organizations to strive towards in 2020.

From a customer perspective, PWA’s also provide a laundry-list of benefits, like easier accessibility, better user-experience, and device flexibility just to name a few. In fact, a case study conducted by Pinterest found that after implementing a progressive web-app to replace their mobile site, ad revenue, time on site and conversions were all increased over a short 3-month period.

Leverage AI & Machine Learning

Two of the largest buzzwords in 2019 and continuing into 2020 are artificial intelligence and machine learning. We’re all evaluating how to leverage these advancements as the technology continues to improve at a rapid pace. As it was put by Ashok Santhanam of Forbes Magazine: “If you are a CIO, VP of IT operations or some other type of IT leader, you are under constant pressure to ensure that IT systems operate at maximum efficiency.”

Machine learning and artificially intelligent systems can help with that, revolutionizing and streamlining processes, while greatly enhancing data analysis capabilities.

Santhanam also states in his article that:

“The pace of change in today’s increasingly digitalized business environment means that ["best practices"] increasingly will not work moving forward. This has given rise to the concept of next practices. Next practices do not focus on improving existing [obsolete] processes... Instead, they deal with the best ways to rethink your processes for the future, leveraging transformative technologies like AI and machine learning to make your processes smarter.”

As 2020 presses on, organizations need a strategy for how to leverage these tools. For organizations more heavily reliant on data-driven processes, artificially intelligent systems could rapidly decrease the amount of time spent both collecting and analyzing data.  

Automation

            Automation continues to play a huge role in business processes, and as we move into the new year, the trend shows no signs of slowing. For businesses looking to reduce process complexity and simplify their workflows, automation may be something to strive for in 2020. For manufacturers in particular, automation plays a vital role in their process. Many manufacturers already automate their production – automating their data collection is the next step.               

We know that 48% of manufacturers use spreadsheets or other manual documents to track of their data, while less than 40% of use data analysis to solve production issues. Data collected automatically is not just easier to gather, but easier to analyze and act on.

Industry 4.0 and IIoT

The same study referenced prior also found that 76% of respondents claimed for them to immediately act on their data, they require “software solutions that automatically analyze data in real-time”. By leveraging both automation and industry 4.0 solutions, manufacturers can reap many benefits ranging from increased efficiency to lowered costs and lower risk of error.

As computing power and storage capacity continues to grow, the cost to access these resources continues to plummet; making IIoT and industry 4.0 technologies more attainable than ever before. For manufacturers looking to cut costs and increase efficiencies in the new year, the latest industrial revolution is a wise investment.

Final Thoughts

It is always smart to look ahead and over the horizon. As we enter into a new year, individuals, as well as organizations will be putting thought into what changes and improvements can and need to be made in the coming months. While some of that may involve replicating what has worked in the past, much of it will have to account for a drastically changing technological as well as economic environment. Taking recent trends and advancements into consideration; data security, mobilization, automation, machine learning and industry 4.0 seem to offer fertile ground for both growth and improvement in 2020.

Let us know what your software resolutions are for the new year in the comments and as always,

Thanks for reading!

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