Businesses are facing greater and greater demands on their time and their resources to keep up with the speed of technological changes. The past decade has seen incredible technical breakthroughs, new product categories and a shift in business models. There are many diverse, unique business opportunities that are rapidly developing thanks to technological advances. This article will explore some of the biggest disruptors on businesses during 2017.
Artificial Intelligence
Adaptable artificial intelligence continues to advance quickly. Machine learning has been a major disruptor for business. Robotics is changing the way businesses operate and gain business intelligence. Advanced techniques have moved AI beyond the realm of rule-based algorithms to complex machine-learning systems that are capable of understanding, learning, predicting, and adapting. Machine vision has also dropped in cost making it more affordable and the transition from external sensors to vision cameras has helped systems “learn” from environmental input as well as behavioral and informational inputs. This is creating systems that integrate more effectively and seamlessly beside humans and these systems can work with little or no guidance with quick movement towards autonomy. That has had a huge impact on how companies staff.
Related to the development of these autonomous systems is the expansion of automation. Industrial automation is nothing new and it works very well for all types of routine tasks. What is new is the approach to automation. For example, aerial drones can supply a lot of data back to the automated system allowing for extremely precise self-driving equipment and driver-less cars.
Smart Home Technology (IoT)
Smart home technology continues to expand. More everyday items have chips, sensors and apps. Now these devices are beginning to “communicate” with each other thanks to the leaps in machine learning technology. Machine learning is shifting the paradigm. The move is on. We are shifting from stand-alone intelligent devices to a much more collaborative “intelligent things” model. This is opening the door to new markets, new products and new data demands.
Blockchain Technology
Bitcoin may vanish but the system that underlies the digital currency is changing the way many industry segments operate like finance and healthcare. Blockchain technology allows the distribution of a database across many distantly located computers while keeping the data decentralized, secure and private. The block chain of transactions cannot be copied making it extremely robust against any type of hacker. It is changing the world of transactional security.
Augmented and Virtual Reality
Businesses are being pushed to cross boundaries between the physical and the virtual world to create ever more immersive experiences. Virtual reality is commonly used for training scenarios and remote experiences while augmented reality helps to blend the real and virtual worlds by providing the ability to overlay graphics onto real world objects. We can even expect greater disruption as these worlds expand to include all of the human senses and not just vision.
Digital Twinning
We have the technology to create a digital twin of a physical thing or a system. This ability to create a dynamic software model of a physical thing or system is disrupting traditional simulation, testing and problem-solving in businesses. Now, using physics data on how an object's components operate and respond to the environment, coupled with data provided by sensors in the real world, businesses can use a digital twin to analyze, and simulate real world conditions and record responses to changes to improve operations and add new insights.
Founded in 1990, Winn Technology Group is a leading provider of global, multi-channel marketing solutions for the technology industry. For both direct and channel sales, Winn supports demand creation, account-based marketing, channel management, digital marketing, social media, teleprospecting, lead nurturing, event marketing, database services, and inbound response management. 
