Incredible news awaits amidst the challenges of 2023’s economic downturn! While it may have cast a shadow over numerous industries, brace yourself for an exhilarating turnaround in 2024! Here is your chance to use six modern business solutions to change the game in 2024. In this article, we will walk you through what they are, the advantages they will generate, and helpful tools. Scroll down for details!
1. Leverage Business Process Management Techniques
1.1 Why Should You Automate Business Processes in 2024?
- Boost team productivity: Automating your business processes frees up your employees from repetitive routines. Hence, they can have more time to handle more complex business aspects.
- Higher accuracy: Business process automation indicates a future where the reins of control are confidently handed over to computers, empowering efficiency and streamlining operations like never before. Hence, it can reduce human errors and generate higher accuracy.
- Better customer relationships: Streamlining processes, especially customer-facing ones, also allows for instant responses, proactive support, and personalized engagements.
- Seamless scalability: You can effortlessly scale up your business as automated workflows adapt to changing demands without additional resources.
1.2 What Tools Should You Use?
- Workflow Automation Tools
You can adopt some workflow automation software offering pre-built connectors such as CRM (Customer Relationship Management System) and ERP (Enterprise Resource Planning). They can seamlessly integrate with existing systems, orchestrating tasks, routing information, and triggering actions automatically.
- AI/ML and RPA
Artificial Intelligence/Machine Learning (AI/ML) tools can learn from data, make decisions, adapt, and improve your business process. Robotic Process Automation (RPA) refers to the automation technology using digital robots or bots to handle manual work or tasks.
RPA tools can automate repetitive tasks such as inventory level tracking, purchase order generation, and warehousing process optimization. Meanwhile, AI/ML gets insights from in-depth analysis of historical sales data, seasonal trends, and external factors for more accurate demand forecasting. It can proactively adjust inventory levels to minimize stockouts and overstocking and streamline logistics accordingly.
Hence, your team has more time on more sophisticated tasks like strategy development rather than being stuck with tedious and time-consuming tasks.
- Business Process Management Software (BPM)
Business process management software can help you automate process mapping, reduce bottlenecks, and monitor real-time performance.
There will be unique advantages for your business if you combine BPM with RPA in your management. The combination enables you to integrate your existing systems with modern ones more efficiently. It will generate process improvement, which sets up for long-term development of your business.
2. Invest in Low-code Solutions
The Low-code Development Platform Market is projected to be valued at USD 16.17 billion in 2024 and is forecasted to surge to USD 62.15 billion by 2029, with a remarkable compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 30.90% during the forecast period from 2024 to 2029
A low-code platform is a visual software development environment that allows you to build custom applications with minimal coding. Its big advantage lies in a drag-and-drop interface and pre-built components.
2.1 Why Should You Adopt Low-Code Applications in 2024?
- Increased productivity: Low-code applications remove the complexity of app development or adjustments. So, it makes the process happen roughly 6 to 20 times faster in many cases.
- Enhanced agility and innovation:
- Your business users can join the creation of solutions for your applications easily thanks to the features of a low-code platform. It opens opportunities for citizen developers to participate in building basic applications.
- Your pool of potential contributors can expand. It also results in a shorter feedback loop between identifying a problem and implementing a solution.
- Cost savings: By empowering citizen developers to build simple applications, you can reduce dependency on expensive coding resources.
2.2 What Tools Should You Use?
- Low-code application studios have features such as drag-and-drop functionality, enabling potential citizen developers to join the app development process. Besides, they can ensure the streamlined operations of the business apps while limiting errors during the process.
- Cloud integration allows you to upload your applications to the cloud and reuse them anywhere, anytime. Besides, your teams can easily access the essential information and data in the platform.
- Artificial Intelligence is a great combination with your low-code app development to automate the repetitive steps and proactively adapt to changes based on history data analysis.
3. Strengthen Security with Blockchain Technology
Blockchain is a distributed database or ledger facilitating the process of recording transactions and tracking assets. It is mostly used in cryptocurrency systems, yet many other industries apply blockchain technology to level up their business process management.
You can see the contribution of blockchain to the supply chain in tracking the movement of goods and materials by its immutable blockchain records. Besides, it offers smart contracts, which facilitate the automatic execution of agreements. It can profoundly reduce manual work and process bottlenecks.
In retail management’s security, blockchain can combat counterfeits by issuing unique digital identities for your products, verifiable on the chain. Explore the specific advantages of security that the technology helps your business below!
3.1 Why Should You Apply Blockchain Technology in 2024?
- Robust security and transparency: Blockchain’s data distributed across a network of nodes can protect sensitive customer data from breaches and unauthorized access.
- Advanced Counterfeit Detection: Each product on the blockchain can have a unique digital identity, which accelerates its authenticity verification. Thus, you don’t have to worry about counterfeit goods in your supply chain.
- Immutable Data Trail: Blockchain acts as a tamper-proof ledger, where every transaction and product movement is cryptographically secured and permanently recorded. It saves your business’s database from being altered or trapped in fraudulent activities.
- Enhanced Access Control: Blockchain tightly controls access to your data, as only authorized individuals can view or modify specific information. So, insider threats and unauthorized access attempts can profoundly drop.
3.2 What Tools Should You Use?
- Blockchain-as-a-Service (BaaS) platforms can simplify the process of blockchain application building and management without extensive infrastructure setup.
- Decentralized finance (DeFi) tools eliminate traditional intermediaries when you want to use financial services, e.g., lending, borrowing, and trading.
- Combining blockchain with artificial intelligence (AI) creates a powerful boost for your business by making productive processes and smooth operations.
4. Upgrade Your Production with Digital Twin Technology
The year 2024 will see digital twin technology becoming more than just a futuristic concept. Businesses across industries are leveraging their power to drive tangible benefits.
Digital twin virtually represents an object or system, spanning its lifecycle. The technology uses real-time data updates, simulation, and machine learning to support the process of your product design and production.
4.1 Why Should You Use Digital Twin Technology?
- Better product research and development (R&D): Digital twin technology allows you to test new designs and processes in a safe, virtual environment before physical implementation. Thus, it alleviates the process of product research and design in terms of its features and necessary refinements.
- Effective process creation: Digital twin technology can simulate different production systems, which eases your monitoring and selection of which models bring the highest efficiency.
- Optimizing energy consumption: Digital Twin supports you in tracking and analyzing energy usage to identify and implement efficiency measures. It also stimulates different scenarios to optimize production processes for sustainability.
4.2 What Tools Should You Use?
- Simulation and modeling tools can accurately model your physical systems’ behavior, incorporating physics-based simulations and scenario testing for robust predictions.
- Data analytics and visualization tools transform raw digital twin data into actionable insights, providing data cleaning, analysis, visualization, and predictive capabilities.
5. Implement a Cybersecurity Mesh Architecture
Cybersecurity Mesh Architecture (CSMA) is a collaborative and dynamic approach to ensure security across your business on digital platforms. You can think of CSMA as a web of interconnected and resilient defense against modern cyber threats.
The Gartner Report showed companies adopting a CSMA with security tools will undergo around 90% less financial impact by individual security incidents by 2024. Such an insight puts the cost-related benefits in the limelight. Is it all about its benefits?
5.1 Why Should You Implement a Cybersecurity Mesh Architecture?
- Comprehensive and proactive protection: CSMA’s distributed security fabric shows considerable advantages over traditional walls. The collaborative and interconnected ecosystem adapts to new threats faster and shares intelligence in real time.
- Consistent enforcement and optimal security posture: Its centralized dashboard enables you to monitor security policies and configurations across all connected solutions while quickly detecting cyber threats.
- Building up your customers’ trust: The robust and proactive adaptation to ransomware and supply chain vulnerabilities by CSMA can emphasize your commitment to customers’ data protection and security.
5.2 What Tools Should You Use?
- Identity and Access Management (IAM) is a centralized solution for managing user identities, enforcing access controls, and enabling single sign-on (SSO) and multi-factor authentication (MFA).
- Security Information and Event Management (SIEM) refers to a platform for collecting, analyzing, and correlating security data from various sources to detect threats and anomalies.
- Zero Trust Network Access (ZTNA) replaces traditional VPNs with secure, application-level access to resources based on user identity and device posture.
- Cloud Security Posture Management (CSPM) tools can monitor and manage cloud security risks, ensuring compliance with regulations and best practices.
6. Facilitate Data Integration
Data integration, as its name suggests, collects data from multiple sources across your business in one place for a holistic, accurate, and real-time dataset.
6.1 Why Should You Start Data Integration in 2024?
- Reduced errors and redundancies: Data consistency across systems minimizes duplication and human errors, saving time and resources.
- Improved resource allocation: You can gain real-time insights into resource utilization to optimize staffing, inventory, and budget allocation.
- Making better decisions: Data integration provides a more comprehensive view of your business or organization. So you can identify underlying trends, patterns, and issues to take timely actions.
- Effective business management: Information sync across various sources helps you take better control and management of your business.
6.2 What Tools Should You Use?
- ETL (Extract, Transform, Load) tools move data from sources to a destination, often a data warehouse, while cleansing and transforming it.
- Data Integration Platforms as a Service (iPaaS) are cloud-based platforms for connecting and integrating applications and data sources.
- Real-time data integration tools handle high-volume, fast-moving data streams for real-time analytics and decision-making. For example, an ecommerce POS is a popular tool to sync your eCommerce databases between online and offline stores.
Conclusion
The six modern business solutions above will provide your business with a competitive edge in 2024 and beyond because of their superior functionalities. We hope our thorough guidelines can equip you with essential information. As a result, you can effectively apply them to improve your business.
Being updated and having experts’ consultancy are two important factors to keep your business thriving in this competitive market. Contact us to have expert support with personalized vertical solutions to enhance your business management and development today.
