Artificial Intelligence
Artificial intelligence is the technology of the moment – the most talked-about digital transformation tool. AI has the power to take data and react autonomously, empowering marketers to make faster and smarter decisions. The potential applications of this decision-making power are endless.
Increasingly, consumers are seeking more authentic interactions with brands and choosing products and services based on interactions. Marketers are tasked with delivering personalized experiences and developing relationships with target consumers that go beyond transactions. This has led marketers to favor tools that enable higher levels of personalization.
Delivering this type of one-on-one experience to multiple customers, across multiple touch points, is no easy feat. Automation can help and has become a vital tool in any marketer’s arsenal. With AI in their toolkits, CMOs are able to create highly personalized experiences that are based on the behaviors of consumers, such as how they interact with your website.
Balancing the creation of authentic relationships with the tactic of utilizing automation tools, seemingly opposing forces, is a challenge for marketing professionals across all industries, whether B2C or B2B. AI is tackling this challenge head-on. It can be used across all major digital marketing channels to tailor content to the individual consumer, generate new leads and sales and, most importantly, leave the consumer a fan of your business.
Artificial intelligence will impact more than just marketing departments. All areas of the business that focus on data will be impacted by AI. For example, in cybersecurity, we are beginning to see how this technology will be a vital weapon in the chief information officer’s arsenal. In the face of increasingly sophisticated cyberattacks, AI is enabling businesses to fight machines with machines. Enterprises are increasingly evolving their legacy networks to become self-learning and, more importantly, self-defending.
DevOps
For many, DevOps may seem like something only IT departments should be concerned with. But when you consider its definition, it is clear a business mindset shift is required to maximize this trend’s potential.
According to Amazon Web Services, “DevOps is the combination of cultural philosophies, practices, and tools that increases an organization’s ability to deliver applications and services at high velocity: evolving and improving products at a faster pace than organizations using traditional software development and infrastructure management processes.”
In other words, DevOps is more than just software. It is meant to encourage strong partnerships between development and operations that extend past the limits of IT to create organizations with better collaboration and integration across all business functions.
Enterprises should make DevOps adoption a priority. By breaking down the silos between development and operations, software can be developed in short cycles, helping your business react to changing consumer demands with agile efficiency. DevOps will speed up innovation in business, which is vital to keep up with the fast-paced changes that digital transformation has ignited. The common characteristic of all future successful business will be agility.
Blockchain
Blockchain – the most mysterious of these three trends – is making the crucial move from buzzword to trend. Originally created as a digital ledger for the cryptocurrency Bitcoin, open-ledger distributed technology is now the backbone of the internet. And thanks to its robustness, it has the potential to radically change how businesses function.
Finance and banking is one industry that is currently working on how to maximize this technology. Blockchain provides banks with the ability to move money anywhere in the world and offers increased accuracy and security for transactions. Blockchain also has the potential to significantly transform healthcare. One of the major challenges in implementing digital technology within this space is security. With the connected patient at the center of the healthcare system, blockchain technology will increase security, privacy and the interoperability of health data.
Despite its potential, business use of this technology is few and far between. But we are now beginning to see its impact for marketers. The MarTech (marketing technology) blockchain landscape leapt into existence last year. For CMOs, this technology, and the transparent platform it offers, is fueling innovation. Companies can establish trust between buyer and seller, monetize their content and increase their following.
AI, DevOps and blockchain are just three examples of how digital transformation is continuing to evolve enterprises, but the most important takeaway is that digital transformation has shifted the roles of CIOs, CTOs and CMOs. Now more than ever, these roles must work together to take full advantage of the opportunities available.
Read the full story at Forbes