8 Technologies To Look Out For in the New Normal
During 2020 we have been witness to unprecedented changes within the business landscape. New tools and technologies have been adopted to allow businesses to remain operational despite lockdown measures. But now that these measures are being lifted gradually, there is yet another challenge for businesses when it comes to ensuring that they are equipped for the ‘new normal’. With the trend being towards widespread remote working, what do businesses need to do to prepare? Here are 8 technologies that enable teams to thrive in the “new normal”.
1) Asana
Asana, a leading work management platform, is helping more than 75,000 paying organisations across 190 countries orchestrate their work, from daily tasks to strategic initiatives.
With an accelerated shift into the future of work, now more than ever, organisations need to provide clarity on day-to-day tasks, to enable teams to hit their goals faster and achieve their company’s mission. As organisations and teams look to navigate what comes next, they must adopt tools which allow them to set objectives and track work in the same place, making it easy to track progress, collaborate, and coordinate what matters most.
Asana provides clarity and visibility for deadlines, responsibilities, and goals across organisations, allowing individuals and teams to understand how their work contributes to company-wide priorities. This helps empower teams, regardless of timezone and location, keeping them engaged and focused on driving the company’s mission forward.
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2) Disciple
Disciple is building a global network of independent valuable communities powered by passion. In practice, this means creating digital communities where people can coalesce around a single interest on web, iOS and Android. The data created by these networks is owned entirely by the host who built the network – not Disciple. Put simply, the value of the network is in the hands of the people who build and contribute to it. Disciple currently has over 300 thriving passion communities all around the world, and well-known hosts include the Rolling Stones, Luke Bryan, and Matt Hancock MP.
Disciple believes in the power of community – a value that was crucial through lockdown as it is in the gradually reopening world and the “new normal”. By helping people to create and build their own communities, Disciple has helped individuals and teams push through the challenges of the past few months and become better prepared to weather the storm the best way they can: together. Keeping third-party contributions out of the picture means there is complete clarity and a stronger personal connection – both of which will be crucial as we transition into a less physically distant but still unpredictable reality.
3) Extreme
Any technology that is enabling businesses to embrace the “new normal” ultimately relies on a robust, resilient and reliable network. Extreme Networks, the industry’s first cloud-driven, end-to-end enterprise networking company, provides organisations of all sizes across every sector with exactly that. Its best-of-breed networking solutions, from the wireless and IoT edge to the data centre, are flexible, agile, and secure – giving organisations greater agility, control, and insights into the networks they need to effortlessly power their “new normal”.
With advanced cloud-driven networking, organisations can centrally orchestrate and connect dispersed teams and environments to power these new ways of learning, working, and doing business, whether returning to an office, school, store or remaining remote. Extreme Networks’ flagship solution, ExtremeCloud™ IQ, offers wired and wireless network management and visibility for thousands of devices and is the industry’s only solution to offer an unlimited historical data perspective for better business and IT visibility over time. Advanced networking solutions like these help organisations accelerate digital transformation efforts and deliver progress like never before.
4) Fiverr
The Fiverr platform connects businesses of all sizes with skilled freelancers offering digital services in more than 300 categories, across 8 verticals including graphic design, digital marketing, programming, video and animation. In 2019, over 2.4 million customers bought a wide range of services from freelancers working in over 160 countries.
Particularly during the pandemic, Fiverr has provided a platform for businesses to connect with the global pool of talented freelancers they need in order to bring their business strategies into a virtual world – from building an SEO strategy to starting an ecommerce website. Fiverr’s platform allows businesses to select freelancers based on their availability, quality of work and past reviews.
In addition to this, Fiverr has also recently launched a Fiverr microgrants scheme that gives businesses the opportunity to nominate either themselves or other businesses that they think are deserving of up to £800 in Fiverr credit that will help supercharge their offering and bring them from offline; to online.
5) Pipedrive
Pipedrive is a powerful sales-driven revenue platform which helps companies focus on sales and deliver better results. Pipedrive helps businesses accelerate growth, streamline the way they manage critical sales relationships, offering greater visibility and helping to drive actions that can help close deals faster. Founded in Estonia in 2010, the company has grown to attract over 90,000 customers across the world, including Amazon, Skyscanner, The Next Web and Vimeo.
To help empower sales teams as they navigate the complexities of the sales cycle in the “new normal”, it’s essential they pick the right tools. Aiding companies in building relationships and streamlining processes, CRM software is a key tool which is fundamental to business growth, helping drive sales, improve customer service, and increase profitability. Pipedrive provides the effective yet easy to use toolset that allows sales professionals to supercharge their processes, track activities, deliver a seamless customer experience, and achieve superior results faster.
6) Procore
Procore is a leading provider of construction management software. It’s one platform that connects every project stakeholder to solutions it has built specifically for the construction industry – for the owner, the main contractor, and the subcontractor. Procore’s App Marketplace has a multitude of partner solutions that integrate seamlessly with its platform, giving professionals the freedom to connect with what works best for them.
To thrive in the “new normal”, businesses must stay connected, be mobile and ultimately work safely. This is where platform technology comes in, as point solutions are becoming adrift given their inability to span workflows and processes. With it’s one platform approach, Procore is uniquely positioned to help teams by providing a way for key stakeholders to collaborate across locations and devices. Overall, Procore offers a single source of truth, helping businesses maintain productivity.
7) Sensat
Sensat is a UK company pioneering the creation of a digital replica of the real world which translates into a version understandable to AI. By using digital representations of real-world locations, Sensat is unlocking value in the Infrastructure industry, which has so far lacked the ability to aggregate and automate data in one place for site visualisation and transparency that has transformed online industries. Since it was founded in 2015, the start-up has already raised over $15 million in seed and Series A funding and has attracted business from over 45 of the world’s largest infrastructure companies.
As construction and civil infrastructure companies look to emerge from lockdown, Sensat has made its site management platform, Mapp free in order to help businesses navigate the shift to remote working and accelerate getting back to business. In this ‘new normal’, businesses have been forced to alter their processes in what is new territory for an industry that has never really needed to change, and enabled firms to manage infrastructure sites remotely. Recent research from Sensat suggests that up to 52% of businesses have used technology to increase efficiency and connect teams where gaps between traditional and remote working have been found.
8) ThoughtSpot
The world’s most innovative enterprises use ThoughtSpot to empower every person in their organisation. Everyone from the C-suite to the front-line employee has the ability to quickly uncover data-driven insights with a simple search and automatically get insights pushed to them with AI. ThoughtSpot is simple enough for any business person to use, yet built to handle even the largest, most complex enterprise data. By making insights a part of every conversation and every decision, ThoughtSpot is reimagining the role of data in creating a more fact-driven world and transforming decision-making cultures.
With almost every industry grappling with ever-changing markets and volatile supply chains, speed and agility is key. By putting data analytics in the hands of those making the business decisions in an accessible and easy to use platform, relevant departments can draw insights and real value from data that would otherwise be locked within silos. By providing easy and fast access to data for everyone, ThoughtSpot helps businesses provide performance at an enterprise scale.
Despite the innumerable and significant challenges presented by the pandemic, it has been positive in at least one sense. Businesses have been forced to innovate and change for the better. The new normal is one that encourages dynamic work environments that allow for employee flexibility and agility. But to ensure this change is one for the better, businesses must invest appropriately or fear being left behind. This means giving due attention to the right types of technology to ready themselves for the years to come.
