5 Technologies That Will Blow Up My Business (And Yours) In 2015

05/13/2015

Forbes | Gene Marks

There are technologies that are coming and there are technologies that are here. For example, in the next three to seven years your business (and mine) will be affected, in some way, by wearables, the Internet of Things, drones, bendable materials, and 3D printing. But not yet (at least, not for most). However, in 2015, there are at least five technologies that have all been around for a little while and will have finally reached a certain stage of maturity. They will become mainstream this year. And they will blow up my business (and yours). Here’s how.

Cloud Accounting. The cloud accounting industry has grown to $1.7 billion in 2014 and by 2016, this is expected to multiply to $2.16 billion. 2015 will see the continuing growth of cloud accounting, led by products like QuickBooks Online, Sage,Xero, Intacct, NetSuite and others. Software vendors are investing significantly less on their on-premise solutions and have moved the lion’s share of their development efforts to the cloud. It’s easier to support and deploy and – let’s face it – cloud applications are more profitable for them in the long run. Most small and mid-market companies now understand the benefits of the cloud and realize that a cloud providers’ security, though nowhere near ironclad, is still better than their own. Like it or not, your accounting software vendor will drag you kicking and screaming there. In 2015 I will look to move my accounting application to the cloud.

Workflow. For years, applications have included automation to help do things quicker. But in 2014 workflow services exploded into the mainstream, led by IFTTT, Zapier, Yahoo! Pipes andelastic.io. These products link online services to each other and to physical things and perform user created functions that monitors, alerts, reports and improves productivity. Examples: a lighting system that flashes when a baseball team hits a home run (it’s connected to a sports website), a security system that sends texts when a door is unlocked, a phone that records every call to a Google spreadsheet for time tracking, an email that automatically creates a Facebook and Pinterest posting. The list of choices is endless because users are creating it. These products will continue to interface with objects, machinery and equipment and will soon easily provide updates that your warehouse manager or director of operations needs to run the plant. In 2015 I will be using IFTTT to connect our mobile devices, people, social media and cloud applications with each other.

Video Meetings. I am watching as the old fashioned webinar continues to fade into the past and services like Google+ Hangouts on Air and GoToMeeting improve in performance and popularity. A Google+ Hangout On Air is essentially a free TV station where a business can “broadcast” its content (training, safety instructions, promos, interviews, case studies, panel discussions) to the world and then automatically save it to YouTube. My company has already started to cut back on our webinars and in 2015 we will expand the use of Google+ Hangouts On Air, holding monthly conversations, interviews and panels with our clients and outsiders to discuss the latest services that affect them.

Customer Relationship Management. The worldwide CRM enterprise applications market is projected to increase from $22.8B in 2013 to $31.8B in 2018. Already a hugely popular tool in the business world, CRM is rapidly penetrating the SMB market. That’s because great applications, like Zoho, Insightly,Nimble and Batchbook, among many others, have matured into inexpensive, cloud based tools that not ensures that tasks are remembered, customers are never forgotten and everyone is kept in the loop. My company sells some of these and larger enterprise applications and already 2015 is looking like a busy year as new clients adopt a CRM culture and existing clients are eager to expand the use of their systems for campaign, lead and opportunity management.

E-Signatures. If you’ve bought a house or rented a property anytime in the past couple of years you’ve no doubt been asked to use EchoSign or DocuSign, two online document management applications that utilize e-signatures (and are massively popular in the real estate industry). These applications, and others like them, will become mainstream in 2015 and my business will adopt them in lieu of the Word docs, paper, email attachments and faxes (yes, faxes) that we’re still using to propose, contract, confirm and invoice our customers. The services will help us speed up the sales process and also provide a repository for documents that both we and our clients can refer to in future years.

What about payments? There are big changes to coming to payments – ApplePay, Google Wallet, PayPal and a number of other services will be fighting over consumers’ method of payment both in store, online and through social media. And in October, EMV technology will essentially become a requirement for anyone using or accepting a credit card. But sadly my business still mainly receives checks. Checks! That’s because I’m not in retail and most of my clients still pay by check. I’m sure you see the same. But rest assured – that will change. Just not next year. Besides Forbes, Gene writes weekly for Inc.com.

This article was written by Gene Marks from Forbes.

The views expressed by the author are not necessarily those of Fifth Third Bank and are solely the opinions of the author. This article is for informational purposes only. It does not constitute the rendering of legal, accounting, or other professional services by Fifth Third Bank or any of their respective subsidiaries or affiliates, and are provided without any warranty whatsoever. Deposit and credit products provided by Fifth Third Bank, Member FDIC.