The Shifting Technological Landscape: How Your Brand Can Keep Up

In business, what can sometimes feel like your greatest enemy is the fact that nothing stands still for very long. Even if you yourself decide to take a rest when you find that everything is going well, it won’t be long before your current approach is antiquated, and you’re behind the curve yet again.

A lot of this has to do with technology – meaning that it’s easy to fall into a difficult situation where money is also a consideration. Yet there is a sweet spot that exists for your brand, and it’s one that might be unique to your own circumstances.

Identifying Your Own Circumstances

What are these circumstances that you need to be so mindful of? Well, how large your business is, the kind of budget that you’re working with, the skills of your staff, the values that you’ve made a central part of your identity, what differentiates your service from what else is on the market – these are just a few of the things that you have to take into account. It can feel as though a breakout new technology is something that every competitor within the field needs to jump on right away, but that might not always be the case, and there could even be room to differentiate yourself by what you don’t do as much as what you do.

Size of Your Business

The size of your business encompasses a lot of these factors, such as the money that you have available and the number of employees that you have working for you. Bringing a new technology into the fold when you have a small team might mean taking time away from their regular operations so that they can get trained up on these new tools – something that could be as detrimental in the short term as potentially beneficial in the long run.

This could, however, be a good opportunity to introduce different opportunities for staff training into the mix. If the arrival of a new technology that’s making waves in your industry also comes with the chance for your employees to get to grips with it on company dime, then they might feel more of an incentive to continue working with you – especially if they want to develop their career in this current area. Over time, this might allow you to cultivate talent around certain highly relevant business technologies that are essential to your specific offerings.

What Your Niche Is

That is also important to consider, however. What is it that your business proclaims to be offering over your competitors? That might decide the response that your business takes to an emerging technology. Is there a way that you can use this tool in a manner that’s unique? Or is there some way that you can set yourself apart without using it without suffering too much of a gulf in quality? For example, even when laser-cutters can create wood-carved ornaments, many people might still prefer to go to a vendor who carves them by hand.

Obviously, your niche is something that you might have identified long ago, during the genesis of your brand. However, it’s never too late to put a unique spin on it, and the arrival of a new technology might provide you with an ideal opportunity to take another look at what defines your brand so that you can better situate yourself within the current landscape for the most marked impact possible.

The Permanent Factors

There will always be components that are less optional, however. In some areas, you might find that there is less room to get creative, and while that might provide you with a more straightforward road ahead, it also means that your budget will likely have to take a hit of a certain size, which won’t always be welcome news.

What’s more, the nature of these permanent factors can be quite changeable. Security is something that every business has to worry about, but not every business needs to consider physical security to the same extent. Every business needs to think about how it’s going to market itself, but that’s a much more creative field than security, and one where your own branding naturally comes into play much more.

Security

Knowing that there is room to save money on security (such as by not having as much of a physical premises that you need to keep safe), you might look to cut back as much as possible. You can save a great deal of money on renting such a space if your business can operate remotely, but that won’t be an option that works for every business. It’s also a risk to try saving too much money in this area, as while that might be an option that benefits you in the short-term, it’s something that could be a drop in the bucket compared to what it costs you to suffer a major security setback. The uncertainty around whether or not you’ll need the full extent of this planned security can put some people off from wanting to engage with it at all, but knowing that it can happen might make the investment well worth it. Managed detection and response solutions take a very proactive approach in this area, for instance, testing your own defenses for vulnerabilities and working to patch them up before they become problems while you consult regularly with security experts.

Employee Retention

The question of how technology plays a role in employee retention is something that different businesses answer in their own ways. Some might feel as though they want to use tracking software to make sure that employees are as productive as possible, but this might actually produce a counterproductive result – making employees feel trapped and micromanaged. Instead, you might invest in eLearning software that makes it easier to provide your staff members with training – making something that many might feel is a benefit of working with your business as efficient as possible to access. This can, in turn, make it easier for your employees to work towards goals that benefit their professional development, something they might not feel as though they’re always able to get elsewhere.

The Cutting Edge Tools

Of course, there will always be emergent tools that come along and promise to change the business landscape forever, with AI being a recent example of this. When the potential applications of a tool are wider than the current practical applications, you might feel as though you’re better able to wait before integrating this tool into your own business operations. It’s easy to get caught up in the marketing of these tools, feeling as though you’ll miss out on something revolutionary if you let them pass you by – but sometimes the marketing is the primary benefit. If you’re able to tell your audiences that you are using this groundbreaking tool, you might feel as though you’re able to frame it any advantageous way that you want.

Everyday Use – The Cloud

The cloud might not feel so revolutionary anymore, but the sheer number of ways in which it’s been implemented into many different business operations tells you just how important it has been. Whether it’s storage, collaboration or streaming, the cloud has applications that can be beneficial to both employees and customers. What’s more, in an age of easy online connectivity, the downsides to the cloud can feel less obvious than ever before. However, it can also feel difficult to market the cloud now that it’s become something that’s more mundane. In this case, then, it might be that using the cloud is much less about the promise of benefits and more about the practical uses that it has – opening the door to flexible working options and a more digitally capable business.

Experimental Implementation – AI

So, what do you do with AI? Do you ignore it, or do you implement it even when you don’t feel as though the potential benefits are all that obvious? In the latter case, simply being able to tell your audiences that you’re jumping on board the AI revolution might be enough of a benefit, but it could also be an opportunity to stand out. This might be a moment to reflect on the values of your business, and how you can use them to position yourself somewhat uniquely.

If every other business in your field (especially those that you consider your primary competitors) is using AI and making it a central part of their marketing, then you might swim against the current. Assuring your audiences that you’re sticking with human-made work for now might help you to develop a more unique take on your marketing, and that’s something that could give you an edge when so many other brands are looking for a way to be unique. However, it’s also worth considering what this tool might actually be able to offer you, and if there is an experimental way for you to use it in a way that could provide a similar benefit, you have to make a decision about which route is truer to your brand.