With the world changing so fast every day are you adjusting to change with it?
Today’s post is by Mark Davis; Sr. Vice President of Operations and CTO at SafeSourcing.
A recent article in the L.A. Times chronicled the latest casualties of the supermarket industry as SUPERVALU announced it was closing 26 stores in California. The article focuses on the changes in the industry and how those companies that fail to adapt to new trends and changes in the landscape are suffering. Click HERE to read the full article.
It was a valid point and it will the focus over the next two days of some emerging new industry trends and what you are doing to develop strategies to adapt to them.
Mobile Technology – It is no secret that the world has embraced mobile technology with a passion rarely seen by any technology. Many technologies in the past have been focused and applied to at best 40-50% of the population. This is not the case with mobile technology as the market penetration continues to grow and the capabilities of new devices begins to eclipse the processing power of full desktop PCs from as recent as 20 years ago. To ignore the possibilities of your customer’s use of this technology is a big mistake. Find out how you can gain an advantage over your competitors by offering smart and useful applications to your customers and increase their loyalty to your products and services.
Managed Services– Baby Boomer Retirement and a Slumping Economy are two of the biggest reasons that companies have lost staff in the past ten years. While the economy is showing some signs of life, the rapidly depleting Baby Boomer workforce will continue to deplete over the next ten years leaving many holes especially in skilled areas. Because of this trend many companies are looking more and more to outsourcing their needs to Managed Service Companies who specialize in an area and have an experienced and skilled staff to handle it. Print Services, telecommunications management, re-emerging trends coming back to Travel Management Services are all areas that companies are moving toward to help fill a need for their company without adding headcount.
SaaS/Cloud Based Technology – The days of companies investing millions of dollars in Enterprise Software purchases are coming to an end. Sure there will be some mission critical solutions that will continue under this model, but most other solutions will move to the “Renter’s” model where companies pay for what they need on a module by module; user by user basis. Accounting software, CRM software, Productivity software, Loss Prevention software, Finance Software are all areas where companies have ditched the $1 million dollar capital expense purchase in lieu of a smaller monthly operating expense model.
Intelligent Video – When video was first introduced it was a novelty that generally came into play only when a significant historical event needed to be reviewed. Tape based systems failed because of the human aspect of changing the tapes or because of the failed hardware itself. DVR technology helped with this but then created a huge collection of video that generally just sat on the machine. What companies are realizing is that they need services and software that can do the job of analyzing the video for them and alert them when they need to review it. Companies are expecting more out of their video investments and because of that Video Analytic software and hardware vendors are constantly bringing new and better solutions to the market for customers to choose.
For assistance in finding the partners to assist with developing strategies in these areas within your organization, please contact a SafeSourcing Customer Service Representative.
We look forward to your comments.
