How to Leverage Technology to Meet Key Business Objectives

As new tech trends emerge and evolve at a rapid pace, organizations must regularly evaluate these trends to leverage the most efficient vehicles for growth—that is, after weeding out any inconsequential newcomers. The smartest business leaders know to avoid the trap of implementing shiny new tools without strategic alignment with their business objectives.

According to Gartner, the top four business priorities that can be addressed through emerging technologies include the following: optimizing IT systems, business growth, pioneering change, and achieving sustainability. We explore these business objectives, as well as the interconnected roles of trending technologies and IT talent, below.

Optimizing IT Systems

For companies that came out of the pandemic aiming to become more resilient, optimizing their IT infrastructure is a critical strategy. In the World Economic Forum’s Global Cybersecurity Outlook 2023, 43% of business leaders reported significant concerns that a cyberattack would materially affect their company within two years. Remote and hybrid work models are still prominent, and the widening spectrum of tools and technologies employees depend on simultaneously increases the number of vulnerabilities a company must address in their IT infrastructure.

The right technologies can increase trust with stakeholders and mitigate vulnerabilities. For some, the solution may involve implementing decentralized architecture, where privacy and security can be more effectively maintained. For companies that depend on their IT systems to pivot proactively and prove their reliability in the marketplace, leaders should seek to expand analytics capabilities and automate insights. These valuable tech stack additions can help leaders become more data-driven in their decision-making, allowing their businesses to be more proactive than reactive.

Ultimately, McKinsey projects that companies focused on optimizing their data-driven enterprise will achieve significant increases in earnings.

Business Growth

Leaders who are focused on expanding their offerings and increasing productivity to grow their business can achieve these goals by strategically tapping into current technology trends. Gartner suggests that industry cloud platforms and platform engineering are two such trends that can accelerate innovation and optimize processes.

Industry cloud platforms equip businesses with solutions tailored for their verticals, simplifying the process of adapting to change. As companies grow, these trending technologies can offer scalable support for ever-expanding needs related to compliance, customer support, and more.

Platform engineering, on the other hand, offers an innovative approach to leveraging technology, including the aforementioned cloud platforms. Platform engineering enhances the efficiency of development—which is particularly important as the complexity of software architecture grows—in part by streamlining the path to deployment.

For companies who are cautiously watching news of when the economy will officially enter a recession, making smart technology investments can help sustain scalable growth even against economic uncertainty.

Pioneering Change

“Every company is a tech company,” wrote the Wall Street Journal back in 2018. In today’s post-pandemic era, it is a platitude we have heard time and again—one that Business.com called a “shocking truth.” Technology has indeed become the backbone of almost every business, but for companies seeking to pioneer change—whether it is turning industry models upside down, bringing change to their communities locally and at large, or even addressing world crises and epidemics—technology represents something much more powerful.

Even when changes are modest—but just as ambitious—businesses need cutting edge technologies. If leaders are considering change in their business model, looking to reinvent employee or customer engagement, or aspiring to break into the virtual marketplace, there are top technology trends they can capitalize to get them there. Whether they tap into the future-focused power of the metaverse or into the increasingly mainstream AI tools, companies can push the boundaries of what’s possible and empower their teams to scale up their skills and reach new levels of innovation.

In pushing for organizational change, McKinsey asserts the importance of nurturing a continuous learning culture and establishing systems to minimize mistakes. When more employees can effectively support the direction of change, the pace of transformation can rise.

Achieving Sustainability

Sustainability is becoming a top value for customers and businesses alike, and emerging technology trends can help. Companies that are focused on achieving specific environmental, social and governance (ESG) objectives can implement sustainable green technologies to harness better outcomes while also supporting operational resiliency, streamlining supply chains, and increasing financial performance.

The continued growth of cloud computing—which has proven its longevity—remains the optimal trend to follow for businesses seeking sustainability and efficiency—especially with the emergence of the metacloud. The cloud reduces the need for hardware (and, therefore, waste) while allowing individual businesses to minimize energy consumption. However, according to Deloitte, many cloud providers still struggle to limit energy usage, though are increasingly implementing net zero initiatives that allow for better alignment with ESG objectives.

Finding the Talent to Leverage Technology Trends

It is impossible to address top technology trends and how they can support specific business objectives without also acknowledging the ever-shrinking supply of technology talent. The U.S. technology sector may shrink by $162 billion if the talent gap continues to widen at its current pace. After all, even if your business is interested in technologies that harness automation and AI, you still need highly skilled people to implement, troubleshoot, and maintain those tools.

Deloitte makes the point that the technology field has massively expanded beyond “information technology” to a host of other technology sectors, including BioTech, NeuroTech, SpaceTech, ClimateTech, EnergyTech, and RobotTech. These categories are expected to increasingly compete for technology talent, attracting professionals with cutting-edge tools and innovation.

A separate Deloitte report adds that with many technical skills becoming redundant every 2.5 years as technology rapidly evolves, now more than ever is the time to be flexible. Prioritizing a candidate’s skills over their experience will be critical to attracting and retaining talent. A McKinsey report agrees that skills-based organizations—ones that look beyond degrees and job titles—will be better prepared for the future.

Focusing on skills, rather than educational background, can also significantly increase the equitability of hiring practices. By opening more positions to people from historically disadvantaged communities who didn’t have access to higher education, organizations can attract highly capable yet overlooked candidates in the technology field.

As we mentioned in our recent article about recession-proofing your workforce, the demand for technical skill has also grown in the wake of the pandemic. Organizations have been forced to focus on their remote technical infrastructure, cybersecurity, eCommerce capabilities, and overall digital transformation. Even as tech unemployment has risen—up to 2.2% from January’s low of 1.5%—it is still significantly lower than other industries. As such, finding the professionals who can help you leverage top technology trends, optimize operations, and position the organization for the future is going to be extremely difficult.

Tapping into the contract-based talent pool is the ideal opportunity for optimal flexibility and scalability for your IT initiatives. It also frees up the pressure on your HR and finance teams.

Working with an IT consulting firm like Resource 1, you can expand your reach and recruit some of the best talent on the market to help your business achieve its goals.

Find your next IT contractor with Resource 1 today.