Small businesses rely on technology each and every day to accomplish their business goals, which are largely influenced by the technology that is available to leverage. To continue this cycle, it helps to look ahead and anticipate what will be prioritized next in computing and IT innovation. It appears that today’s businesses are more focused on convenience.

By convenience, we mean that businesses will need to ensure that they are able to accomplish what they need to accomplish from anywhere, not just in the office setting. We predict that businesses will increase their ability to leverage the following solutions that allow them to work remotely, thereby increasing potential productivity.

Cloud Services
Of course, it’s hard to discuss remote technology without discussing the cloud, as it is a platform that serves your business’ remote computing needs. As web-based solutions, cloud platforms provide access to a secure, yet collaboration-friendly, online storage space and utility. Not only does this permit your staff the access to applications from anywhere that they can establish a secure Internet connection, it keeps the files they have worked on in a place where they are protected, striking the right balance between safety and utility.

Telecommunicating
This is another solution that remote work becomes considerably more difficult without. Without the means of communicating between resources at a distance from one another, productivity and comprehension will take a hit. Your employees would only be able to collaborate bit-by-bit over email, or would have to meet in person to accomplish anything, which isn’t an effective means of staying competitive. However, with solutions like VoIP and others now enabling communications to take place regardless of distance, a business that doesn’t take advantage of these tools to improve their internal and external communicative abilities, is passing up on a solution that is proven to be valuable.

Video Conferencing
In a way that is very similar to how telecommunicating brings an office and its resources back together, video conferencing is a solution that not only gets the job done, it encourages your entire team to work more closely. Meetings can be run between resources in Des Moines, Syracuse, and Fort Lauderdale as though they were all in the same room, without the costs of travel. Collaboration becomes a lot more convenient when you can show what you are trying to describe to the person who needs to sign off on things from hundreds of miles away.

These are the technologies that we anticipate businesses will more actively seek to use. Did your predictions make the list? Tell us, in the comments section, what they were and why you think they will be so impactful in the next year!