Innovations within the IT industry are empowering businesses everywhere to know more, do more, and be better in every way that matters, and that’s today’s reality.

As of right now, companies can leverage massive processing power and cutting-edge connected sensors to collect and analyse data from intelligent data points around their businesses. They’re using super-fast storage to store and structure the mountain of data they collect in ways that make it easier to analyse.

Artificial intelligence (AI) analyses it all to extract actionable insights, and staff are using advanced software tools to make their jobs easier while boosting their overall effectiveness and efficiency.

Furthermore, customers have more ways to interact with companies than ever, and the customer experience itself is undergoing an overhaul that surprises and delights with convenience, speed, and tangible customer-centrism that sets businesses apart.

All of this has come about thanks to the need for digital transformation that has been driving business technology over the last few years.

But what of the coming years? How are the business technologies we’re seeing right now going to develop in the future, and what trends should business keep an eye on in 2019?

Wider adoption of digital infrastructure

Digital infrastructure is tipped by the likes of Dimension Data to see greater uptake in 2019, as companies make use of their improved knowledge of their infrastructure requirements, and their awareness of the benefits and pitfalls of deploying everything themselves or using third-party services.

It’s anticipated that managed services will grow in popularity and companies will make increased use of third-party providers that offer the kind of flexible, scalable, and programmable digital infrastructure that not only fulfils business needs but keeps costs down as well.

Increased adoption of cutting-edge technologies

Business technologies that were new just a few years ago, like artificial intelligence, the blockchain, robotics, machine learning and VR/AR, will continue to gain traction in the business market.

This will happen because businesses now have an even better understanding of where these technologies are best applied, what sort of outcomes they facilitate, and how they can surprise and delight customers.

But more importantly, big-name vendors like Microsoft, Google, and Amazon are making these technologies easily available by embedding them in their own platforms for quick and easy use and deployment. Adoption will continue to rise as more and more organisations realise just how easy it is to integrate the technologies into existing operations.

Cloud-based security

Cybersecurity in 2019 will make greater use of cloud-based intelligence to handle the ever-growing number of online threats. The use of AI and machine learning to make sense of the mountain of data generated by threat-detection activities will help to streamline the process.

The ability of machines on any corporate network to autonomously decide how to react to cyber threats is also expected to improve, allowing for largely automated responses to security situations.

Organisations are expected to treat cybersecurity as a priority rather than an afterthought in 2019; buying decisions will be based first and foremost on how secure solutions are, and secondly on how aligned they are to business needs.

Dimension Data’s Technology Trends 2019 whitepaper predicts that 60% of organisations will invest in multiple data security tools in 2019 – a figure that’s increased 25% from 2018.

Greater customer-centrism

Rather than trying to adopt every technology out there, it’s expected that businesses will investigate digital ways of placing and keeping the customer the centre of their world.

This means a radical overhaul of existing business processes that prioritise the customer experience over everything else. To do this, businesses will realise the value of ready-made platforms that do what’s needed, and which are quick to deploy but also powerful and flexible.

Technologies like the internet of things, and the growth of B2B digital trading platforms that let customers connect directly into a business’s supply chain, will help to facilitate this in 2019 and beyond.

This is all because it’s predicted that, by 2020, the customer experience on offer will become more valuable and important to the customer than merely price and product when it comes to brand awareness and loyalty.

Gathering momentum

Overall, 2019 will see the continued adoption of the new technologies that have been making headlines for the last few years, with the aim of improving the customer experience which is becoming more important than anything else.