To anticipate what’s coming in the world of technology in 2021 is not straightforward. We need to consider key changes in consumer and company behaviour and also predict how countries’ economies will likely perform. One thing that’s certain though is that the lifestyle that emerged on the heels of the pandemic brought more online purchases and online administration along.
Consumers wish to manage their lives online and in real-time as much as possible, and they expect the best in customer care. This might entail changing platforms to enable shopping with just one click. “I personally expect the emergence of augmented and virtual reality applications to support shopping decisions” – speculates Péter Szekeres, CEO of Neticle. “You can check the style and size of a pair of jeans online, but it would be much more engaging if you could try them on virtually. You can see a piece of furniture in an online catalogue or in a photo of a nicely designed apartment, but you also want to feel it out in your living room.” This will boost shopping experience and sales conversions as a result.
Augmentation technology is already available, and the required computational capacity is sitting in our pockets. “I see a clear market opportunity here to boost remote shopping experience. Many physical shops and branches are closed and won’t be reopened anytime soon, so there will be budgets available for such innovations. I also expect some premium shops and branches to build their own virtual spaces for shopping. Even whole virtual malls might emerge” – Szekeres envisions.
Toolsets to fully support remote, asynchronous work
On the business side, Neticle’s CEO sees two fresh challenges that need to be addressed in 2021: remote authentication and remote access management will become essential for every business, from SMEs with 5 to corporations with 10,000 employees. Safe accesses need to be managed, monitored and ensured for remote working. This will generate simple and secure solutions that focus on different company sizes. He expects some of them to be aimed at specific industries as a niche strategy.
At the same time, 2020 taught businesses how to go digital: they’ve learnt to use video calls and chat platforms professionally. Yet the real culture of async work is not fully supported. How do you avoid unnecessary interruptions? When is the best time to use email, chat or a short phone call? The remote or hybrid working environment requires an async working culture where co-workers fully respect when somebody is “in the zone”. This can be anything that’s complex and requires great focus, such as reviewing a contract, coding a module or planning their upcoming month.
“That’s why I expect the rise of new toolsets very soon” – highlights Szekeres. “These will effectively address async working challenges and set up new digital policies, automated escalations and messaging delays. The big players (Zoom, Slack, Teams, Meets) are likely to quickly integrate these smart features. We at Neticle are focusing on how we can automate workflows and support data-driven customer care with text analysis and AI. Due to the digitalisation projects started world-wide in 2020, IT projects will be more open for language algorithms and text analysis based smart solutions. How can we bring media intelligence insights to every level of decision-making, and how can we automatically understand customer feedback and complaints? This is where we place our focus.”
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