Every field advances over time, and you don’t always want to be an early adopter. Sometimes, you want to wait a bit. With time, every technology becomes more sophisticated and more affordable.
Sure, there are numerous benefits to being an early adopter, which is what creates the entire dilemma.
With that in mind, let’s see the top five tech trends you would benefit from adopting early and five on which you may want to wait a bit.
5 Tech Trends You Should Embrace As Soon As Possible
Some technologies are already sophisticated enough for adoption. Then, some tech trends will offer the most payoff if you adopt them early enough.
Remember that scalability also plays a part; the sooner you adopt something, the sooner you exploit the benefits. It’s like buying a rental property; buying three months earlier means getting three months more rent for the potentially same property cost.
1. Smart Devices
Smart devices provide a whole new level of control over your home. You get to control your heating remotely, program your backyard irrigation system to water the lawn with the precise amount of water and check if your door’s locked while you’re at work.
You can also set up the kettle to start brewing tea without leaving your bed. The thing is that this technology is already quite reliable, and since you’re already using your smartphone for everything else, why draw the line here?
2. Fiber Internet
You would be surprised how many people still use cable internet, even in areas with better options.
Fiber internet is a relatively new trend and doesn’t use cable TV infrastructure (like cable internet) or phone lines (like DSL).
However, it’s superior in every aspect. This means that if you have a fiber internet provider, switching to it should be a no-brainer.
Whether you download, upload, or stream in Full HD doesn’t matter. The thing is that the majority of your work revolves around great connections.
3. Cryptocurrencies
With crypto, your profitability depends on early adoption. This means you must figure out promising new tokens and invest early on.
Just browse the list and find more info on the subject matter before making up your mind. So many people have already got rich off crypto that you know it’s possible.
Also, there’s ample proof that something evaluated in cents can become worth thousands of dollars. You’ll hardly find similar rates with any other asset type.
4. Collaboration Tools
As a business, you’re probably already working on a hybrid model or have some remote employees in your organization.
Even if your team works from a traditional office, you could still benefit from a great collaboration tool. This way, you can keep the communication formal and easy to track.
Version control on projects becomes a lot easier, not to mention a boost that you get in terms of document sharing. With so many options, just look for one that meets all your needs and whose UI you like.
5. Artificial intelligence
The power of AI is so immense that it can almost guarantee you a competitive advantage. Some people are skeptical, seeing as the technology has just exploded and is still getting improvements.
Sure, in a few years, unless the regulation of this technology completely hampers its progress (which is highly unlikely), the AI-powered algorithms will be much more potent.
However, they’re still strong enough to give you a competitive advantage. Refusing to use them because you know they’ll get better would be like an early modern army refusing to adopt firearms because they were waiting for assault rifles.
5. Tech Trends You Should Wait On A Bit
Some tech trends are still not in their stage of full technological maturity. Others are useful but not enough to yield a positive ROI.
Overall, we’re not suggesting that any of the technologies listed below are bad or useless, only that, as of 2023, they might not be worth it for your small business.
Virtual Reality
While virtual reality is a great concept, there are so many reasons why this technology is still not there.
First, unlike augmented reality (AR) which only requires a smartphone (which everyone has), VR requires a whole headset that most people have never used.
Sure, Oculus Rift and HTC Vive are expensive, but even cardboard VR headsets are something that most people have never used. So, going too hard into VR is not the best of ideas for your enterprise.
Quantum computing
Quantum computing is still in its earliest stages. Therefore, it still has a limited commercial application. This is fine for major enterprises that can afford to spend big to become industry pioneers.
For a smaller enterprise that doesn’t have unlimited funds, the budget needs to be organized to provide maximal gain.
Whenever it comes to sophisticated technology, there’s a point past which it reaches its technological maturity.
Quantum computing still hasn’t reached that point. This is especially wasteful since most enterprises haven’t resolved simpler issues like cloud security.
Autonomous Vehicles
While this tech trend has expanded greatly over the last few years, numerous safety concerns remain.
There’s also the issue of infrastructure readiness, like communication networks, sensor-equipped roads, and high-resolution satellite mapping of the areas.
This infrastructure must catch up before these vehicles can unleash their full potential. Also, at the moment, these vehicles are still quite expensive. This means that most small enterprises cannot afford them (especially in larger quantities).
Biometric Authentication
A few years back, everyone was excited about face scanning to unlock your phone.
Then, someone proved that a camera/scanner could not distinguish between a face, a photograph of a face, or a cardboard cutout with a face printed on it.
This concerned everyone, and many people second-guessed whether this was a good idea.
Also, in a world where people are already cautious about how much information they share with businesses they work with, are fingerprints and face scans making the situation any better?
What about the security risk of losing some of this data? This is the kind of liability that businesses don’t benefit from and don’t even need.
Internet Of Things
The cost of implementing IoT into your business model would still be quite steep, and it’s questionable what the payoff would be.
Sure, you would get more data, but would this data be enough to justify these astronomically high initial investments?
One of the biggest problems with investing in IoT is the lack of proven ROI. We’re not suggesting that there isn’t an ROI, but the data is still inconclusive, and more studies would have to be supporting it.
You Have Limited Resources, So You Need To Make All The Right Investments At The Right Time
There’s the right time and place for every investment. Drones were a gimmick for the longest of times; today, they’re a revolutionary device that is quite inexpensive and easy to operate.
The same thing goes for every other tech trend in existence. Just make sure that you figure out the best approach to this situation.
Ella Marcotte
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