How to Future-Proof Your Business by Investing in Technology

The world is facing some of its worst crises. The scale and nature of humanitarian distress are at an all-time high.

Since the pandemic, industries have faced unprecedented uncertainties and risks, destabilizing business ecosystems and driving inflation. Now, more than ever, you need to consider how you can future-proof your business.

A seismic shift in mindsets and behaviors is needed to address these myriad challenges.

As C-level leaders, if you are concerned about the impact on your business and wish to work toward recession-proofing it, this blog is just for you.

Keep reading as we share critical insights on how investing in technology can help you future-proof your business.

What is Future Proofing?

How will tomorrow be? In the backdrop of volatile changes, reflect on whether your business is future-proof to keep up with your customers. Before we understand the basics of future-proofing, here are some areas of concern with critical statistics.

Areas of Concern:

Great resignation: When it comes to the recent quit rates, around 8.6 million people quit their jobs in 2022 (Jan-Feb), and about 55% of workers in America are planning to look for new jobs.

Global skill shortages: The global talent shortage has hit its highest level in 16 years, with 75% of employers reporting difficulty filling roles. (Source)

Natural disasters: The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) highlighted that in terms of disasters, there have been around nine disasters, which resulted in billions of dollars in damage in 2022 so far. (Source).

Inflation: Global inflation is projected to increase to 6.7 percent in 2022, twice the average of 2.9 percent recorded during 2010–2020. Moreover, headline inflation in the United States has reached its highest level in four decades. (Source)

Key Takeaway: The statistics strongly suggest that companies need to work on future-proofing their operations, given the significant uncertainty about the future.

So, what exactly is future-proofing?

In simple terms, future-proofing businesses means continuously innovating and implementing processes and improvements that help organizations thrive in the future, even in unforeseen and unprecedented circumstances. The good news is that you can avoid stress and uncertainty by making adjustments, ensuring you won’t become outdated in the coming years.

Furthermore, a future-proof business serves as a guide to help companies define the scope, scale, and specifics of how their businesses can evolve. It helps businesses meet critical challenges such as natural disasters, financial crises, and inequalities while still delivering value across social, economic, and environmental dimensions.

Why is Future Proofing Your Business Important?

The future-proofing is essential today. Businesses that are proactive and consider future-proofing can navigate unpredictability with technology. And here's a peek:

Customer Interactions

With customer expectations changing rapidly and the pandemic, remote interactions and customer recognition now need to take place in the digital realm. It is imperative to adapt and foster new strategies for augmented customer relationships, acquisition, and improved revenues.

Technological Scalability

Businesses today run in a volatile landscape, and there are chances of more unpredictability in the future with weather disasters, supply chain disruptions, and financial crises. Business leaders who opt for technology solutions that are scalable for such future scenarios will enjoy that competitive edge.

Business Agility and Technological Flexibility

Business agility is the need of the hour. It allows business leaders to be more responsive to change, boost the time to market, and lessen costs without having to sacrifice quality.

Plus, companies must plan to adopt technologies that are flexible so that they benefit from always having relevant technology. It is crucial for businesses to adopt emerging technologies in machine learning (ML), artificial intelligence (AI), augmented and virtual reality, and more.

With business services like BI and financial management relying on such technologies, it can only boost the capabilities of the businesses. Plus, cybersecurity procedures are not an option anymore. It is essential to recognize the importance of proper business security. And business data should be audited so that “future-proofing” can take care of the security needs in the long run.

Employee Resilience

With changing market scenarios, business leaders are constantly working on driving resilience, and one of the surefire ways is to upskill employees and new hires. Companies must invest in continuous learning and also work on reskilling opportunities to keep their employee skill sets developing. Such anticipatory investments in employee development can improve engagement levels.

How Can Technology Investment Make Your Business Future Proof?

Here are things you can do right now to recession-proof your business.

1. Foster a Growth Mindset

When businesses embrace the attitude of looking at change as an eventuality, they want to start by leading by example. A shift in mindset will go a long way to future-proof business.

With a growth mindset, business leaders constantly think about how they can watch their employees, teams, and organizations grow and evolve.

2. Define Your Company Culture

It always helps to start with an inside-out approach. What does it mean? As a first step, companies can start by reflecting on the company culture and fostering it to make sure employees want to stick around.

According to research from Robert Walters, it was found that almost three-quarters (73%) of professionals have left a job because they disliked the company culture.

One of the major concerns for companies today is to strike a balance when maintaining their culture in a remote or hybrid work environment. In this context, it is critical to future-proof businesses to foster a culture that embraces innovation and creates an environment where employees feel that they're free to offer suggestions.

When you value their input, you will set trends in better practices and also be in a situation to develop new products and services.

Take the time to objectively evaluate what is required to ensure your company's success. And redefine your culture (if needed) to facilitate business objectives and growth and make sure your employees are future-ready to deal with challenges in the future business landscape.

3. Connect and Listen to Your Customers

Listening to customers helps to connect with them. It helps to pay close attention to their needs and understand how you, as a business, can help them meet their needs and achieve their goals. So, what happens when you listen to your customers:

• Reduces customer churn
• Boosts customer retention
• Augments customer loyalty
• Identify opportunities to upsell and cross-sell
• Creates superlative customer interactions

It is worth investing time and money in honestly evaluating your business as you listen to your customers. Take time out to delve into analytics and think of how you can change your customer's pain points and address their future needs.

4. Aspire to Create More Promising Digital Customer Experiences

Once you know the pain points, you can try to elevate customer experiences. It means having a more seamless, user-friendly experience for your customers.

Logically, customers' needs will evolve at unimaginable speeds, so you can implement a CRM system to track customer behavior and work around the results.

5. Invest in Technology

The impacts of the current global crisis on businesses have proven that implementing technology can ensure business continuity.

With the onset of the pandemic, digital technologies have taken the centre stage. Business leaders need to consider using niche technologies to boost performance. Companies are focusing on building a technology-enabled workforce. It will help to focus on the tech-enabled future to navigate the challenges of the future.

6. Invest in Cybersecurity Systems

The average cost of a data breach in 2021 was nearly $3 million, even for small businesses.

Securing systems today and beyond is one of the best ways to preserve your company's future and build trust for your customers. Hence, investing in cybersecurity is no more an option.

Investing will help your company with a better defense against various malicious attacks, such as data breaches and malware. With evolving technology, you can find improved ways of defending sensitive and confidential information.

7. Ask for Professional Help

To tech up, sometimes you may find that you don't know where to start. Plus, it may be challenging to see all the loopholes. However, there is no shortage of experts, and you can leverage your POV by partnering with professionals such as Imaginovation.

It will help you with critical perspectives and constructive ways of recession-proofing your business with niche technologies. Moreover, it will help you improve your digital presence and implement a holistic strategy.

8. Forwarding Think and Transform Smartly

As a C-level leader, you wish to constantly provide above-par experiences. Hence, it will help to focus on audits and data analysis and proactively respond.

Once you know the areas where you have transformation needs and gaps in skills and expertise, you can use the most relevant technology and empower your brand.

9. Constantly Optimize

Here's the thing: all facets of working on future-proofing your business isn't a one-time activity. Always find novel ways to optimize your business and your future-proof plan.

So, keep revisiting and finding new systems, new strategies, and new technologies to ensure that you get the best for your business. You may need to pivot several times, but that is the need of the hour, and you will benefit from being more agile and flexible.

Wrapping Up

Companies need to be future-ready today and maintain a sharp focus on operational excellence. Those who can leverage technology to navigate future challenges will reap the benefits.

All business leaders need to do is apply innovative solutions using data and technology, and articulate their vision for the future. A future-proof business is a strategic choice that will help you align with and articulate your vision.

Make Your Business Future Proof with Imaginovation

Create your "Uber moments" by future-proofing your business. As C-level leaders, it will help you plan to invest wisely in innovative digital solutions, transform strategically, and prepare your business for the future.

If you need help designing innovative and robust solutions, talk to us.

We can help you create and execute a strategy to stay recession-proof with niche technology applications.

Let’s talk.