(This article originally appeared in Forbes)
Here are five things in technology that happened this past week and how they affect your business. Did you miss them?
1 -Pinterest unveiled new shopping features, including its Shopify checkout integration.
Pinterest announced new features this past week that enable users to make purchases within the app. The new tool –Checkout –has already been used in beta by some merchants in the U.S. through Shopify. Pinterest will be using a new programming interface to help automate catalog updates and uploads. Pinterest will also be rolling out a new feature called Your Shop, which will provide tailored pages based on the preferences and activities of users. (Source: Pymnts)
Why this is important for your business:
Many small businesses use Pinterest to attract customers to their products and if you’re on there, now’s the opportunity to take advantage of their shopping features to sell products on the platform.
2 — ‘No-Code’ is bringing the power of A.I. to the masses.
There has been an increase in new products that let anybody apply the powers of artificial intelligence without the need to write any code at all. What used to take teams of engineers to develop can now be done by a single, inexperienced individual. The explosion of ‘no-code’ is in-part thanks to A.I. advances which help power no-code platforms, simplifying website creation and other beginner programming functions. (Source: New York Times)
Why this is important for your business:
If you want to learn more about how low-code/no-code applications can help your business check out my discussion with experts at three tech firms who are providing these tools to their customers.
3 -Working from home increases cyberattacks by 238 percent, according to a new study by Alliance Virtual Offices.
A recent study released by Alliance Virtual Offices found that –since the start of the pandemic in March 2020 — cybercrimes have been on the rise increasing by 238 percent. Remote workers have been found to be the main target of cyber criminals. Despite what employers save with employees working from home, the aim of the study was to determine whether the cost of cyber-attacks outweighed the savings of remote work. (Source: Yahoo Finance)
Why this is important for your business:
One of the tradeoffs your employees will need to make for the benefit of working from home is to allow more monitoring. That means paying an IT firm to ensure that their computers are running the most recent security software, are updated to the most current operating system and are accessing the internet through a secured router. Only that way can you reduce your risks of being the victim of a ransomware attack.
4 — Is the use of employee monitoring contributing to the Great Resignation?
A recent study focused on HR technology revealed that 95 percent of leaders in HR plan to implement productivity tracking and reporting methods for remote workers or already have done so. A study conducted last year by Gartner found that monitoring remote workers can lead to higher employee burnout, decreased job satisfaction, increased stress, and a higher rate of resignations. (Source: SHRM)
Why this is important for your business:
I believe there are better places for a small business owner to invest their limited resources other than employee monitoring technologies. The whole point of giving your employees this kind of flexibility is to allow them to manage their schedules as long as their getting their jobs done and delivering on their promises. You don’t need monitoring software to determine that.
5- Contactless shopping is getting fashionable. Checkout the newest store from a clothing rental startup.
Armoire –an online clothing rental startup — is testing out its new store Armoire Go. This Seattle-based physical store provides a contactless service for returning or picking up clothing orders. Users can sign in on tablets and put the clothing on a table that reads the RFID tags attached to the items. Descriptions and pictures show up on the tablet to confirm and — after only a few minutes –shoppers are good to go. (Source: GeekWire)
Why this is important for your business:
Contactless commerce is one of the things that will be a long-term residual of the pandemic. Many shoppers not only prefer it but expect it and it’s important for if you’re running a retail store. Which is why you should seriously consider and adapt to some of the technologies Armoire Go is using.
