Modern businesses are now far more advanced and reliant on a wide range of technologies than it was even a decade ago. Across the business spectrum, organizations are increasingly seeking to adopt the latest technologies to give them a competitive edge or to improve various aspects of business planning, customer experience, and day-to-day working practices.
The widespread adoption of internet-based technologies is a key factor for modernization across many industries. Many firms now hold their IT infrastructure in the cloud to benefit from improvements in terms of efficiency and operational benefits. In this article, three specific ways modern technology improves the business world will be explored in detail. These examples are relevant to a wide range of different organizations across many different forms of industry.
1. Enhanced decision making
In 2024, many businesses have changed how they make high-level decisions, becoming increasingly reliant on the growing power of advanced analytical platforms and the use of big data to reduce the inherent uncertainty in strategic decision-making. Business intelligence platforms such as Microsoft Power BI and Tableau are now routinely used when making such decisions. They allow businesses to take high-volume data from multiple sources and then combine this via the BI platform so that it can undertake sophisticated analysis and produce information that would be virtually impossible to produce simply with human staff.
Data-driven decision-making allows firms to gain deeper insights into the current market situation while helping to provide clarity in validating or opting not to undertake strategic plans. Put simply, this technology allows organizations to have greater confidence in their long-term strategic plans, secure in the knowledge that voluminous real-world market data back them up.
2. Improved delivery services
Courrier and shipping services have greatly benefitted from the Internet and now use this technology to ensure that they can ship goods efficiently and offer their consumers competitive prices. For example, firms such as Shiply have a customer website that allows shipping quotes to be retrieved in a matter of minutes for thousands of different items.
Shipping orders can then be placed online, which are automatically communicated to the planning and logistics teams to ensure that every fleet vehicle undertakes its delivery journey at or close to the capacity of the vehicle. This also helps shipping firms reduce their carbon footprint by shipping larger volumes of goods per journey which helps to lower the CO2 released per item shipped. In short, the Internet has helped to revolutionize the shipping industry, making it more efficient and an increasingly cleaner part of the wider global supply chain.
3. Tech supporting remote working
Finally, millions of workers now enjoy the work/life balance benefits that come from remote working. There is less need to commute to a physical, shared workspace (helping to reduce a company’s carbon footprint), and this can lead to lower fatigue levels in the workforce. Remote working relies on a range of technologies to ensure that it remains an efficient and effective option for businesses.
Video conferencing and team messaging applications help to ensure that effective communication takes place in a remote working environment, and cloud-based project management solutions allow teams to collaborate effectively without work being duplicated or silo working practices occurring.
