In 2024, technology has now become synonymous with growth. The very reason why it’s only tech companies with outrageously high price-to-earnings ratios regarding their share price is because of grand expectations. Expectations of rapid growth.
As organizations compete within this digital environment, tech strategies have become complex but vital. Tech strategist consultancies (view makingsense.com) have never been so in demand, so let’s see what’s on the table.
Embracing Cloud Computing for Scalability
Cloud computing has really revolutionized the way businesses operate. It offers unparalleled scalability that has never been seen before. This is because it’s vastly more flexible and cost-effective than the legacy systems before it.
By migrating infrastructure and applications to the cloud, companies can more easily scale their resources up or down based on demand. Ultimately, this helps solve the growing pains of startups without the need for significant upfront investments in hardware.
With cloud-based solutions, organizations can seamlessly accommodate increasing traffic. For example, a quick “upgrade my plan” on a web hosting provider can be done in an afternoon. The same goes for data storage requirements and computational needs – consider how fast it is for people to upgrade their own Google One accounts to larger storage. It’s instant.
This creates malleability and to ensure their systems remain responsive even under heavy loads. And, if a company is seasonal or sees a dramatic drop in demand, users or traffic, it can downgrade just as easily depending on the contract in place.
Cloud computing can also enable businesses to use newer technologies like machine learning and big data analytics without the need for extensive in-house expertise. The building blocks are already in place, and they often have support material that is invaluable.
Leveraging Data Analytics for Informed Decision-Making
Data analytics has become a big part of growth as businesses try to make informed, data-driven decisions. This trend is caused by a mixture of having better data available, and being able to gain better insight from it with predictive modelling advancements.
The power of advanced analytics tools is also more attainable now, with modelling being a matter of drag-and-drop in some cases, along with increasingly powerful dashboarding frameworks. Organizations can get better insights into customer behavior and market trends, but also operational performance within their own organization.
Integrating AI and Machine Learning in Business Process Management
The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning (ML) into business process management (BPM) solutions is also altering the way organizations can optimize their workflows and efficiency. BPM solutions look at automating routine tasks and streamlining processes.
AI within BPM can automate repetitive tasks, like we always have, but on a more sophisticated scale. This can free up human resources to focus on either strategy or value-added activities. Intelligent process automation can handle tasks such as data entry and customer service inquiries, which boosts productivity. With the advancements of LLMs, it’s even possible for AI to prioritize our tasks and summarize meeting notes – or even to take meeting notes.
ML algorithms can also analyze data in real-time to identify patterns – or anomalies – that may indicate inefficiencies. And, the self-learning nature of these models means they can continuously learn and iterate to be better, with stronger predictive power.
This will become important to the scaling up of businesses. It’s common that inefficiencies arise as departments grow and roles become stretched. Automating tasks not only accommodates the scaling up of operations and processes, but it could keep an organization on the right track, acting as a safeguard.
We are yet to see the full scale and opportunity of AI within BPM. LLMs have emerged only recently and are lacking integration with our business processes and IT infrastructure. Once they’re a part of the furniture so to speak, they will be more contextual and less generic in their use. For example, your own AI model may soon be keeping track of every work email you’ve ever received, and it can draw on this from its short-term memory.
Prioritizing Cybersecurity in a Growing Digital Landscape
As businesses scale up, so will their IT infrastructure. Again, relying on digital infrastructure is now synonymous with fast growth, even for something like a local restaurant. In this example, they will turn to more sophisticated payment gateway, POS systems to manage the menu better, seating arrangement, and a kitchen display to track orders. Whether or not these systems remain centralized, they become more vulnerable to breaches.
There is a growing sophistication of cyber threats too that necessitates a proactive approach to safeguarding sensitive data like customer information, particularly as more and more businesses are now holding this information.
Implementing a comprehensive cybersecurity strategy is important for a business that’s scaling up because it is prone to leaks and mistakes. From the start, basic first principles are needed to be learned (i.e. how to look out for phishing), but it will ultimately be technology that safeguards this process. Software updates, VPNs, encryption, and so on.
While best practices like creating strong passwords are of course needed, it’s increasingly the technology that can remind us of this, provide data validation, and help prevent human error. A fast-growing business isn’t going to have the time to transition to a fully in-house IT department, so much of it will still be outsourced and cloud-led.
Final Word
Growing businesses place more emphasis on technological strategies due to the growing pains and mistakes that are likely to occur along the way. As a local business explodes in popularity, for example, it’s common to see their customer service get worse. For an online shop, its servers may break down. For a takeaway, the kitchen may begin to struggle to meet demand. This is why technology, in particular the cloud, is relied upon to scale up many of these processes and take advantage of cutting-edge solutions.
