Understanding how best to use IT in business is a topic that comes up time and time again. As the landscape of IT continues to grow at such a rapid pace, keeping up with the latest changes in the industry will increasingly become harder and harder.

The global spend on information technology will top $4.8 trillion in 2018. With $1.5 trillion of that spending coming from the US, revenue growth should follow suit.

But as a small business, it can be intimidating to consider what changes in this industry can mean for your business. You may know that IT is vital to success in your industry but be too intimidated to know what changes to make.

To take all the worry away, we’ve compiled some of the latest insights on IT so you can stay up to date and know exactly where you stand in 2018.

What Will This List Include?

To make understanding the latest innovations and insights in IT clearer, this list will put together a variety of different insights. Everything from the latest trends online, to how virtual reality can affect IT in business.

Understanding why you might need a professional IT service can go hand-in-hand with capitalizing on the latest advancements in IT in business.

Here’s Our List of the Latest Insights for IT in Business

We’ve broken down some of the biggest insights in IT into easy to manage chunks for your to digest.

Sit back, relax, and get excited about some of these big changes coming your way.

1. Artificial Intelligence

That heading might make it seem like we quantum leaped into the future. But the truth is AI, robotics, and virtual reality are all leading the forefront in the latest technology innovations.

There are a lot of exciting new technology shifts coming in 2018 that are looking to shake up the landscape and support digital business. For any business, the integration of AI into your company can help massively with automation.

What that means is clearer and quicker procedures, fewer staff costs and a better quality of service. 45% of organizations still find managing multiple IT environments complex and AI looks to be making a change to that.

Understanding how you can integrate artificial intelligence into your business could lead to innovations as this technology moves into the mainstream over the coming years. You may link AI to video games and entertainment, but the shift into the world of business is one that is highly anticipated.

Automation is taking control of both middle and back-office functions that traditionally have been outsourced. This new found “digital labor” is expected to make drastic cost savings for businesses, especially those outsourcing low-level jobs.

2. Focus Shift to Speed of Deployment Over Costs

There are a ton of businesses out there that are increasingly worried about the threat posed by digital disruption. In 2018 this means that companies will be fixing up their digital infrastructure so that they are more streamlined, more flexible and more adaptable to sudden changes in the market.

Some of the big changes we will encounter will also be a new focus for companies. The speed of deployment is increasingly becoming more important than costs with the emergence of new technologies at such a rapid pace.

With this, you will no doubt see an increased investment in container technology. You can see this especially in companies that focus heavily on innovation and differentiating themselves from the market.

3. Content Marketing

Content marketing is one of the biggest industries in the IT world with more than $313 billion projected revenue for 2019. This is one of the biggest markets for marketing now, as more people become increasingly resistant to traditional advertising forms.

Consumers aren’t fans of in your face advertising. Content marketing has become the new force for marketing in 2018. One of the biggest trends you’ll see for IT in business is using content marketing, especially video marketing, effectively.

Video is fast becoming one of the biggest ways to reach your audience online. It builds brand loyalty and gets more leads and customers coming to your business.

With content marketing producing over three times as many leads as outbound marketing while costing 62% less, you’d better listen up.

With almost half of 18- to 49-year-olds accessing their information online, it’s never been more important for you to incorporate IT into business more effectively through content marketing.

4. Voice Search

Alexa, Siri, Cortana–all of these successful services are at the leading edge of technological innovation. Voice search is already becoming a huge element of our daily lives, and as 2018 unfolds this will grow even more so.

Voice search is a huge emerging trend for IT in business. To capitalize on the advancements of it early will see huge benefits for your business. You only have to look at how much easier and quicker it is to perform a simple task with Amazon Alexa.

You can do something as simple as replacing your toothpaste with, “Hey Alexa, buy me some toothpaste.” Twenty seconds later you’ll have some toothpaste on its way to you, sometimes in under a few hours.

This simplistic way of making our everyday lives easier will be one of the first major changes we’ve seen in the way we interface with our devices since the keyboard.

5. Cloud Integration

As enterprises and businesses move away from hardware dependency and upwards into the cloud, the time for many businesses to consider support is here.

The public cloud may be a good place to store your personal files. But for a business having a dedicated private cloud environment for security, regulatory and competitive reasons is soon going to be the standard.

With more adoption of software-as-a-service models comes a need for hybrid-cloud environments for many different business models. Providers that can seamlessly manage and integrate these cloud environments will help to create more operational control for your organization.

What Are Your Thoughts on the Latest IT Insights?

Do these latest insights into IT in business surprise you, or are you ready to embrace them and make a change?

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