With each passing day, the world is moving towards new medical, mechanical, and technological advances, and its race towards evolution is now faster than ever. This not only influenced the way we live our lives as regular citizens but also, how we enjoy various services, products, and amenities. This aspect of society affected several industries, and of course, the way businesses achieve success.
Businesses, one way or another, started to rely on technology to flourish. When we talk about technology, we talk about its many presentations. Hardware and software, for example, are the main things granting society the benefits of technology, but some forms of technology can also be linked to machinery and it is especially present in manufacturing and mass production. With that said, it is true that software has become a very important foundation of today’s society.
Understanding the Basics of Software Development
Simply put, the software is the soul of any program, app, computer, smartphone, and laptop out there. Software is created through something known as programming and programming languages, as shown over https://hackr.io/blog/what-is-programming. Simply put, programming is the process in which a programmer, commonly referred to as a coder or computer specialist, creates code through various commands using a programming language.
There are a lot of programming languages out there and each one specializes in very specific things. Some good examples that are very popular right now include:
- Python is an advanced programming language that is very easy to learn, read and use and it can be applied in a wide range of implementations
- Javascript is a browser-based programming language that specializes in web software development.
- C and C++ are very advanced and complex languages that can create detailed code that fulfills specific and sophisticated needs. Java is similar to C and C++, only that is not as advanced but is easier to learn and handle.
With all that said, although programming has become a very important aspect of today’s society, software developers are scarce in comparison to all the needs of different industries. Thankfully, companies can rely on service providers and other companies to deal with their technological needs.
The Way Software and Programming Influenced Society
Not that we understand how the software works and how it is created, we have to understand why it matters so much. I believe that you are getting a rough idea of the way software development influences our daily lives, but let’s talk about it in more detail.
Whenever you grab your smartphone and press a button to turn it on or unlock it, the phone is capable of reacting to this input because of the software. Of course, the reading of this common is only possible because hardware exists, but we can say that software is, to a certain extent, the brain of the bone, while the hardware (the screen, buttons, speakers, and more) are its body. Without the brain, the body will only be an empty vessel, a useless object.
It is through software that we can enjoy most of the things involving smartphones. Browsing, listening to music, downloading, and using apps, all of that is only capable because a dedicated group of software engineers managed to achieve such things.
That is why I can dare to say that society is what it is thanks to how software development was handled, since, without it, technological advances involving all aspects of society wouldn’t be possible.
But how does this specific type of technology influences businesses?
The Correlation Between Technology and Businesses
Now, considering all the things new technologies and programming languages have managed to achieve, we can say that the possibilities are endless. These possibilities, of course, can also heavily influence the way businesses are managed.
Different pieces of software that are used for accounting, bookkeeping, customer service, and process and asset management are now part of every company out there. Even the way information is shared changed, and with COVID-19 happening all around the world, meetings are now performed video-call services like Zoom.
This, of course, is very important to have in mind, just because of present technological advances are in our society. When smartphones came out, a lot of businesses and startups out there jumped to the opportunity of getting advantage of it.
Websites that previously existed like YouTube or Facebook created their own apps to make sure that anyone owning a smartphone could enjoy their services, and new ideas like Spotify were brought to the table, changing the way entertainment is enjoyed forever.
Naturally, this does not only mean that technology affected the way certain services and products are enjoyed. Because of how to present certain electronic devices are in our society, like smartphones, for example, the way businesses started to deal with marketing also changed.
Naturally, this does not only mean that technology affected the way certain services and products are enjoyed. Because of how to present certain electronic devices are in our society, like smartphones, for example, the way businesses started to deal with marketing also changed.
The Evolution of Marketing
Marketing, back in the day, involved things like fliers, posters, T.V commercials, and radio announcements. This was the way marketing was done a couple of decades back, and although it shows a certain level of efficiency at improving a brand or company’s presence even today, it is not as efficient as digital marketing.
Digital marketing can be described as the evolution of marketing, and although there are different types of digital marketing campaigns, each one takes advantage of electronic devices like smartphones. Now, although there’s little to no implementation of software development when it comes to digital marketing, understanding how it works is important.
Why? Well, knowing are the options at a company’s disposal to target specific types of audiences to charm them and turn them into potential customers is a very important thing to engage in a successful digital marketing campaign.
This also involves the process of researching and understanding the options, for example. Specific types of websites are great for aiming at specific audiences, but at times, the number of people using a specific service is just too great to be able to properly categorize its audience, but this is a good thing because the fan of possibilities becomes greater.
A good example of this includes Facebook with its 2.80 billion active users. YouTube has over 2 billion monthly users, and over a billion hours are reproduced on a daily basis. Instagram has over 1 billion users, and Reddit has over 52 million users.
Each platform out there can be used to target an audience, but the way it is done is rather specific depending on each platform. Social media is usually great for picture-based marketing, while YouTube and Reddit are great for audiovisual marketing. The way digital marketing can be handled varies greatly, but it is true that the need for a professional capable of using different software tools and taking creative decisions can greatly influence the success of a marketing campaign.
Now, with that said, let’s cover another aspect of technology that involves not only marketing but business management on its own: RPA.
The Introduction of Robotic Process Automation
Things might get a little complicated during this section. One of the things software development and programming is capable of doing is creating something known as A.I, or Artificial Intelligence. Although artificial intelligence by itself covers a wide range of categories and types, there’s a specific type of A.I. that is very simple, and it is used for the creation of bots.
These bots are not actually capable of handling complex decisions or coming up with their own processes and reacting accordingly to unexpected stimuli, but they are capable of handling very simplistic tasks and tedious activities. This is the core concept behind robotic process automation, commonly referred to as RPA.
Now, this can be applied for a wide range of tasks, further improving the performance of various processes involved in a company’s management activities. Simply put, they are involved in the process of automation inside of any business.
In marketing, one of these robots can make use of data to analyze decisions that could greatly improve a company’s success ratio, and react to simple stimuli to try to entice potential customers into buying products or hiring services.
A good example of this is how, whenever you enter a website, a bot pops to talk about things related to the website, and provides information about products and services. If you check out this robotic process automation provider, you’ll get a more solid idea of what I’m talking about.
Bots can also handle simple tasks like answering frequently asked questions, solve doubts regarding complaints, and even guide past and future customers in case there’s a need for it. Bots, of course, can also handle tasks regarding accounting, bookkeeping, and problem resolution.
Not only that but A.I. software like this can also handle activities related to manufacturing, and good examples of this are automatized machinery inside of manufacturers.