Software experts viewed 2018 as “the year of the data breach,” for a variety of reasons. In response to these security breaches, however, these same software experts believe that the trends of 2019, and beyond, will focus on increasing security and decreasing the likelihood that businesses will be hacked.
But what are some of the other trends in business software that we can expect in 2019 and beyond?
Trend #1: The Rise of Blockchain
Much ado has been made about blockchain, and that “ado” includes misconceptions about what it can — and cannot — do. In a nutshell, blockchain technology is the technology that is responsible for the secure transmission of information and is usually used in the financial sector. But as companies begin to invest in their employees — and those employees begin to learn about blockchain technology — the blockchain sector will begin to expand beyond the financial sector, as well.
Trend #2: AI and ML
Another emerging trend in business software involves AI and ML — which stands for artificial intelligence and machine learning, respectively. Though AI is still in the nascent stages of development, especially on the enterprise level, machine learning has become such an integral part of business and enterprise software that it’s almost a pre-requisite to have in 2019 and beyond. “Deep learning,” especially, has exploded in use over the past five years, and in the coming years, we can expect it to continue to explode in conjunction with the ever-increasing amounts of data that become available.
Trend #3: The Rise of the Progressive Web App
Viewed as a hybrid of sorts between a regular web app and a mobile app, businesses are turning to progressive web apps because they’re easier to both develop and maintain than traditional mobile web apps. With the progressive web app, Service Worker — which is a script that runs in the background while the progressive web app is deployed — enables smart caching of a company’s website. What happens, as a result, is that the company’s website will subsequently load faster after the first visit, regardless of the state of the networking.
This allows the user to have a more “modern” and pleasant experience, and companies will begin to deploy the progressive web app more and more.
Trend #4: The Shift of Focus to Design
Finally, as companies begin to realize that the UX (user experience) is tantamount to both obtaining and maintaining a customer base, the shift of the companies’ focus will move towards design. Martina Hodges-Schell, the head of production design for Pivotal Labs, believes that as the field of design grows, so too will such titles as Chief Design Officer and VP of Design. “[These titles] underpin their transformation into customer-centric product organizations and follows a trend to bring design capabilities in-house. As design practices mature they need appropriate executive leadership support to continue to grow the breadth and depth of their practice, scale to match the need of the organization, develop a core design ops capability, and keep hard-to-find talent engaged,” she said.
At ITS, our goal is to serve as your technology partner with an emphasis on business solutions. By evaluating your organizational objectives and technology needs, we can identify dependable solutions that address your current and future requirements. For more information on how we can help your company keep up with the growing business software trends in 2019 and beyond, contact us today for your free assessment.