Technologies That Every Entrepreneur Should Invest In

With the way that technology is always changing, any business that wants to survive must also change. This has proven especially true over the past few years. There are a lot of new apps and mobile technologies available to help us improve our lives, both at work and at home. 

Cloud Computing 

Yet another major change and improvement in technology is cloud computing. While most people know that the cloud exists, they don't realize what it is or how it affects the way in which they use technology every day. 

Business defines the cloud as a way of storing data in a centralized location that you can access through the internet. This is a great place to store your important business files. The great thing about it is that you can then access them through your laptop, tablet, and smartphone. 

Today the cloud is so popular it's almost like it's a buzzword. However, many businesses still haven't fully adopted it. This is unfortunate because tech and software-as- a-service companies (SaaS) companies could use it to improve their products and services. Businesses, in general, could use it to improve their internal communications. This is because an entire workforce can now stay in continual contact with each other, which would give them all the data, functionality, and communication they need. 

With the cloud does come a greater need for IT security though. This is especially true now that 60% of the world's banks conduct most of their business in the cloud. Intuit Quickbooks truly believes that this should spur changes in how we secure online information. One such change we're seeing today is in how many companies are now buying cyber-breach insurance – according to Experian, at least two-thirds of companies now have it. 

WebRTC Technology 

Tools such as Uberconference are an example of WebRTC (a free, open project that provides browsers and mobile applications with Real-Time Communications capabilities via simple APIs) technology. This is one of the many apps that's improving how we do business today. 

According to Blog Geek, some of its many benefits include: 

• Now you really can do anything you want from inside of your internet browser – even make real-time video calls. You don't even need to depend on having Flash installed, which is great since you can't use it on your mobile devices. This is just one of the many ways technology has changed and grown since the beginnings of the internet. 

• WebRTC has been open sourced thanks to a very lenient license. This makes it easier to integrate it into commercial products since it's no longer just a plug-and- play module that you integrate into your web browser. Companies like Mozilla will welcome this good news because they don't have to do as much work to implement this standard. At the same time, interoperability across web browsers will now be easier as long as most of them willingly adopt Google's open source WebRTC package. Of course, it looks like this will happen since the main players who are backing WebRTC include Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, and Ericsson. 

• There's already an ecosystem in place, complete with demos. Standardization efforts are also surrounding it, including IETF and W3C. Currently IT professionals are working on adding WebRTC to HTML5 too. This means that eventually you really will see it everywhere. 

• Before WebRTC it was really challenging to build real-time video calling solutions. A lot of investment was necessary in those areas, which small start-up companies simply couldn't afford. With WebRTC there's been a lot of changes and innovation when it comes to video conferencing. Many new players are now getting on board with WebRTC businesses built around them. So, while traditional video conferencing companies are ignoring it, there are companies who support it wholeheartedly – an example of which is Voxeo. 

• WebRTC is actually good for more than just video conferencing. Of course, it does make a great video calling solution but it's important to understand that it also allows for a lot more. This includes things like voice only capabilities and allowing APIs to access the camera through the browser. An ever-growing number of innovations are possible and are being seen as more apps that depend on WebRTC are rolled out. 

3D Printing 

Another technology that we've heard about for a while is 3D printing technology. Experts believe that over the next few years 7 in 10 multichannel retailers will use it in producing custom stock orders. It's important for small business owners to keep up with this trend because it's poised to revolutionize manufacturing. As it does so, businesses will save time and money because they'll forego overseas production since it's no longer necessary to maintain a large stockpile of inventory – yet another way of saving money. 

The items you can now print are seemingly endless. You can even print 3D items in chocolate. The possibilities are expected to continue growing as people are also continually adopting this technology. 

It is important to understand that 3D printing is not the same as manufacturing. The reason for this is that it won't only be manufacturing or product-based businesses that will be affected by this growing trend. Experts believe that 3D printing will also prove itself invaluable to creating prototypes and biomedical applications, while also lessening the cost of other products that relied on complex equipment in the past. As prices and liability for these items continue to decrease, your business will be able to save a lot of money and still have at its disposal any products that it needs. 

Conclusion

While we can't accurately predict how technology is impacting business' bottom line, we can clearly see it's important to pay attention to tech developments as they occur. We can't only watch as they happen though, we must also proactively respond to them before our competition does. Whether this means adopting new strategies, leveraging emerging technologies, or responding to our customers, these things will give us a leg up on our competition. This should be enough of a reason for us to stay flexible when it comes to using these technologies to improve our business today.


I hope you enjoyed this article about exciting new technologies that every entrepreneur and forward-thinking business should invest in.

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