Tech is an ever-changing industry. Each year, new developments and challenges arise for professionals in the field. Technology leaders must be prepared to adapt to these obstacles as they come up and develop a plan for moving forward.
A panel of Forbes Technology Council members was asked what challenges they’re facing this year and how they’re planning to overcome them. Read on for their best responses.
1. Staying Relevant As App Fatigue Rises
Across the popular app stores, users have access to more than 4 million apps. Everyone is competing for a slot on the one device no one leaves home without. Customers will continue to prune their devices in the coming year, so developers must offer more than one-off interactions to remain relevant. Examine the entire user journey across all channels and leverage mobility to make it seamless. – William Francis, ENO8
2. Finding New Ways To Monetize Apps
App monetization is a tricky thing that many companies are wrangling with right now. I believe customers’ willingness to pay for subscriptions is at peak. Some apps even help customers monitor their subscriptions, so I see more and more cancellations. The challenge is coming up with new ways to monetize apps that go beyond the ways that are starting to fatigue people. – Joshua Davidson, Chop Dawg
3. Adapting To New Regulations
Since the Cambridge Analytica scandal occurred, institutions across the world have shown their distaste for powerful tech entities by implementing burdensome regulatory laws. Building a successful digital product is hard enough, but dealing with these new regulations ratchets up the difficulty to a new level. The only solution is to comply and adapt accordingly. – Marc Fischer, Dogtown Media LLC
4. Preparing For The Next Generation Of Advertising
Consumer privacy is at the forefront. The recent Google announcement about phasing out cookies has sent shock waves through the industry as the vast majority of the ad tech ecosystem is built atop cookies. We have prepared for this transition by investing in dynamic creative capabilities, developing a proprietary data solution and working closely with partners to successfully transition to the next generation of advertising. – Damon Henry, KORTX
5. Being Increasingly Quick And Adaptive
We’re facing a slew of projects that require our dev teams to be quick and adaptive. Many of these projects will build momentum for the next push, and our teams must deliver their A-game early on in each project to keep up. Our plan to overcome is oversight and accountability during record-breaking sprints. – Tammy Cohen, InfoMart Inc.
6. Protecting Against Cyber Risks
New threats and vulnerabilities present themselves in the technology world every day. Most attacks focus on end-users within a business, so people are the highest risk when it comes to security. We provide mandatory security awareness training for all employees so that everyone is informed on how to detect and respond to different attack methods. – Sanjoy Malik, Urjanet
7. Applying Automation
The use of automation through technology, data science, and AI makes employees and entire business units more effective. Knowing where and when to apply these tools is important. It’s also important not to dilute your brand or value-add by overusing automation. Far too many companies overly automate, reducing their potency by not staying true to their customers or mission. – Tom Roberto, Core Technology Solutions
8. Training Employees For New Digital Technologies
In a market where there is a talent shortage and shifting technology landscape, we need to retool our team with emerging digital technologies. To enable this, we are leaning heavily on our partnerships with technology companies to train our workforce. Leading platforms are stepping up and providing training since it benefits them to have a workforce that’s knowledgeable about their products. – Randal Kenworthy, Cognizant
9. Managing A Growing Backlog
Our problem is having a lot of items on our ever-growing backlog. We plan to overcome it by looking closer at how we can get two birds with one stone. Can one task actually complete two or three with a little more effort? The more we plan and look for this, the more nimble we are and the faster the response is from our consumer base. This translates to a faster pace and growth. – WaiJe Coler, InfoTracer
10. Staying On The Cutting Edge Of Emerging Technologies
Artificial intelligence and computer vision are nascent technologies. The tools, frameworks, and algorithms change significantly multiple times per year. This poses an exciting opportunity for a team that is hungry for innovation and hungry to learn, yet it is a challenge. We focus on hiring smart people and creating opportunities for our team to learn on the job so they can keep their skill set sharp and stay on the cutting edge. – Daniel Bruce, Vinsa
11. Driving Traffic And Increasing Conversions
The traffic our site receives is heavily dependent on search engine results. We plan on reducing this dependency by raising brand awareness, diversifying our backlink profile, and creating and acquiring high-quality content. We strive to create a memorable experience so that when students are stuck, they think of us first. – Abishek Surana Rajendra, Course Hero
12. Growing While Maintaining Agility
Every business grows, but managing that growth is truly an art—especially when it comes to rapidly scale up. And that’s exactly what we’re doing. It’s all about finding the right balance of new team members and new technologies to help you hit your growth goals without sacrificing the spirit of your company (or your ability to stay agile). – Dan Demers, Cinchy
13. Facing External Challenges
Yes, new technologies can create one-off challenges, but I’ve found the greatest disruptions come from outside the industry. Take COVID-19, which has thrown a wrench in travel and industry events and brought financial challenges for companies with operations, employees and customers overseas. It’s usually the things you don’t plan for that bring the most disruption. – Danny Allan, Veeam Software
