Transforming businesses in the data-driven world

Businesses need to ride on the digital infrastructure laid by connectivity, networking, and communication technologies to usher in innovation

For the first time since the Industrial Revolution, technology is seeing a greater alignment with applications that are truly making difference in the way businesses, consumers, and society function. From the information at your fingertip to storing and churning petabytes of data on your virtual servers as well as handheld devices, making faster decisions with accuracy and flexibility is possible today due to technologies like Fibre-to-Home, 4G, unified communications, social media apps, cloud, micro-services, Web 3.0, and automation.

Affordable smart mobile phones, the rise of the cloud, and faster links to end users are enabling both sellers and consumers to ride the Web 3.0 wave to have a choice of multiple products and services with quality customer experience to choose from.

If assembly lines have improved productivity and scale by dividing labour among skilled workers, machines have improved manufacturing consistency. Similarly, information technology has bridged the gap between the industrial and corporate sectors. The Internet, cloud, and last-mile connectivity have transformed the business lifecycle of ideation, manufacturing, sales, distribution, and consumption with higher visibility, control, and ease of business for suppliers, governments, consumers and communities.

In the past years, aggregators of applications like ride-hailing, food delivery, travel portals, and eCommerce, etc. have made use of technologies like location-based services, cloud, edge computing, UPI, messaging, chatbots, CDN, APIs, data science, AI, ML, 4G, IoT, AR, VR, and automation to reduce the digital divide. These technologies also bring sellers and consumers together securely and ubiquitously.

The post-COVID business

The pandemic has taught businesses and consumers that interactions and work must continue irrespective of location and environment. Digital workplace and hybrid work will, therefore, continue to evolve to improve productivity, employee engagement, talent retention, and customer service, provide better security, and reduce operating expenses.

In 2023, cloud computing and cloud-native applications will continue to accelerate the start-up eco-system as well as legacy businesses for innovations with agility, speed, scale, and flexibility. Edge computing will further aid data processing right where it’s needed: for Industry 4.0, autonomous vehicles, remote monitoring of assets in the oil and gas industry, and smart grid by processing huge amounts of data coming from various elements without needing to go to centralised computing resources.

With Infrastructure as Code (IaC), networking and security are no longer separate domains for carrying and processing data. Cybersecurity will become ubiquitous to detect, prevent and protect the data in all layers of communications, mediums, and environments.

The Internet of Things (IoT) will bring manufacturing, agriculture, buildings management, and retail outlets to the forefront from being a closed-door industry. It will enable predictive maintenance, speed up medical care, improve customer service, etc.

Tomorrow’s workforce – both blue and white collar, entrepreneurs, doctors, farmers, and scientists will no longer need to travel to prestigious universities, to learn, hone and apply their craft. They will be able to master it sitting at their homes and living in the surrounding familiar and conducive to their overall well-being. With enormous bandwidth, 5G will enable businesses to create and deliver new products and services that will allow them to offer new experiences to customers.

The Internet of Things will bring manufacturing, agriculture, building management, and retail outlets to the forefront.

The technology will help emulate real-life environments like performing remote surgery, manufacturing industrial components using 3D printing technology, and processing complex data to make smarter decisions. It will improve safety and traffic management, smart grid control, and smart retail too.

Infrastructure for a data-driven world

With data as the new oil, datafication is simply transforming everything in our life into devices or software powered by it. Industrial machines, office applications, AI-powered appliances, and everything else will further rely on data. AI and ML will churn disparate and complex data, making humans take faster decisions in areas like healthcare, banking, finance, investments, logistics and transportation.

In healthcare, AI will help Genomics quantify your genes and result in finding diseases or any possible problems that could have been detected by manual methods. The Augmented and Virtual Reality tools that were limited to airline pilots, astronauts, and top scientists, will be used in training, entertainment, and education to provide immersive experiences that help retain information better and practice complex skills.

The blockchain which uses a digitised and decentralised public ledger will enable a new digital and online economy around the Internet securely accelerating money, and confidential data exchanges from banks and the insurance industry to retail and e-commerce to healthcare.

In 2023, businesses will ride on the ubiquitous foundation of digital infrastructure laid by connectivity, networking, and communication technologies and will usher innovations and developments in transformative technologies, including AI, cloud computing, blockchain, IoT, AR and VR, and faster transport like 5G, to improve business productivity, consumer experience, and human lives.

By Karunya Sampath

Sampath is the Co-founder and CEO of Payoda Technologies

feedbackvnd@cybermedia.co.in