The last few years have posed some considerable challenges for modern business. Most notable was the COVID-19 pandemic that went truly global in early 2020. Almost overnight, businesses were forced to quickly adapt to new government legislation that resulted in movement restrictions and lockdowns being placed on the population. There was a need to quickly allow remote and hybrid forms of work to become “the new normal” to ensure business continuity. Thankfully, millions of businesses had already made the transition to cloud computing, and their online-based platforms and applications made remote working a reality. Since the pandemic, the business world has faced difficulties in the form of high levels of inflation, an emerging cost of living crisis, increased energy costs, and severe reductions in consumer spending power. Put simply, the current economic landscape is uncertain and challenging. In this article, two key trends will be explored that are currently shaping modern businesses.
Remote working is here to stay
As previously mentioned, the recent pandemic resulted in millions of workers undertaking their tasks from home. However, as the worst effects of the pandemic seem to have passed, remote working is still proving popular with both employers and employees. Many people find that it allows them to enjoy greater flexibility in how they work, avoiding the need to commute and resulting in less fatigue at the end of the week. However, it is important to note that effective remote working relies on staff having access to fast and reliable home internet connections. When working remotely, staff will often be expected to attend virtual video conference meetings and use multiple online applications, all of which can be bandwidth intensive. If your home needs faster internet access, consider upgrading to fiber internet from a provider such as Frontier internet. Fiber internet is one of the fastest forms of internet access and can provide download speeds as high as 5 Gig per second. This is more than enough to support the running of multiple online applications whilst connecting to online video calls.
Increasing use of drone technology
Drones were first widely used in the military to undertake surveillance missions or attack military targets. However, in recent years, they have begun to be adopted by a wide range of industries. For example, in the pre-hospital healthcare sector, a growing number of ambulance services are starting to use this modern technology to deliver life-saving payloads to critically ill patients. Defibrillators can be carried by larger drones, reaching the scene of a medical emergency far quicker than could often be achieved by road vehicles. In a time-critical emergency, the rapid delivery of life-saving equipment can dramatically improve survival chances, and this drone technology will likely continue to be rolled out across the pre-hospital emergency care sector. However, drone usage is not confined to emergency services; it is also used in the agricultural sector. Larger farming operations use drone technology to quickly assess and monitor the state of fields and crops. Drones can cover a large area of ground far quicker than a human in a tractor, providing information on crop conditions and yields by fitting a high-definition camera to the device. The aerial vehicles can also be fitted with crop spraying equipment to offer a cost-effective solution to spraying large areas of fields.