JuliaSmall businesses play a huge role in an economy since they employ a major part of the workforce. As per the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, there are around 33.2 million small businesses. Many more entrepreneurs are also planning to start their own businesses, which would increase this number.
If you’re a small business owner and want to have a competitive edge, then incorporating the new tech trends is vital. Digital transformation has helped businesses to streamline their overall operations, leading to higher productivity and efficiency. Most importantly, you need to stay ahead curve and know about the tech trends beforehand.
So, what are the top tech trends that small businesses should consider for 2023? We’ll discuss them in this article.
1. Automation Would Be At the Forefront
Automation has been the talk of the town in business circles for quite some time and we’ll likely go to see more of it in 2023 as well. We’ll likely see more companies incorporating automated solutions to deal with the labor shortage.
Small businesses would also leverage cloud technology to further speed up their automation efforts. This means that they would focus on moving their workloads into the cloud from an on-premises environment. Doing so will not only give companies greater scalability and flexibility, but will also help them cut back on costs.
However, it is imperative to use reliable tools for cloud migration. Using third-party service providers, such as OpenStack and JFrog, can be an optimal choice for your business’s cloud migration.
2. Artificial Intelligence Would Continue To Dominate the Market
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are buzzwords for various industries. It is the most critical technological trend that small business owners must know of. AI has been helping businesses in different sectors. For instance, AI played a major role in powering self-driving cars for the automotive industry.
Additionally, this robust technology also helped doctors in diagnosing various diseases and streamlining their medical treatments and procedures. In the case of small businesses, they can leverage it for automating manual tasks, enhancing customer experience, and making decisions.
Another example is that chatbots can give instant responses to customers. It can be available around the clock to resolve customer issues and answer their online queries. Furthermore, AI-powered marketing tools can help you develop customized marketing messages for every customer.
3. Employee Monitoring Software and Tools for Remote Teams
The concept of remote working was more of a necessity during the Covid-19 outbreak but it is now becoming a new norm. This makes one thing clear; remote working is here to stay and more small businesses would switch to this model.
However, it would also mean that we’ll see a trend of increased monitoring of hybrid teams through various software or tools. So, this is a tech trend worth keeping an eye out for small business owners since we’ll see more advanced tools and technologies for employee monitoring.
4. Tech-Assisted Shopping Will Continue to Prevail
In a bid to reduce expenses and increase profitability, many small businesses are now increasing their efforts toward mobile and social media shopping. The idea of doing so is to give customers a contactless shopping experience.
While it was mostly done by large retailers, many small business owners are now following the same pursuit. Mobile payments have now become more common with online wallets, QR codes, and mobile terminals. It allows users to make payments easily, making it an optimal investment for small businesses.
5. More Focus and Emphasis on Cybersecurity
The transformation towards new working practices has led to new types of fraud. This includes malware threats and attacks that can lock businesses out of their systems for ransom. While these attacks were usually conducted on large enterprises, SMEs (small and medium enterprises) are vulnerable to them as well.
Therefore, we’ll see a growing tech trend in 2023 where small business would increase their cybersecurity efforts and data protection protocols. They would need an extensive data backup-and-disaster-recovery plan to deal with possible cyber-attacks. Furthermore, they would also have to come up with different standardized blocking and tackling game plans to keep their business safe.
6. Digital Marketing Will be a Dominating Trend
Last but not least, digital marketing, most notably social media marketing, is going to stay here for a long time. Online presence is crucial for SMEs today and digital marketing plays a critical role in it. Most importantly, small businesses should focus on leveraging local SEO.
Local search engine optimization for small businesses can help them target the audience in their vicinity. It will help your website to rank when people close by your business search for the products and services you offer.
Final Word
Tech trends can continue to change on various factors, such as user response to new technologies, economic conditions, availability of skilled resources, etc. However, such things usually qualify as a gradual process when it comes to widespread adoption and doesn’t happen overnight. Keeping that factor in mind, the tech trends in the article will continue to stay in 2023 and the year onwards.
Julia
Josephine William
