Your ecommerce business is a critical resource. It also helps to serve as a platform for sharing your values, beliefs and attitudes with your customers. But are you future proofing your online business by preparing for jobs that don’t exist yet? Probably not, to be honest. 

The future arrives faster than you would think and can have a considerable impact on your business... especially a Technology driven business. But what does it all mean for you as a business owner and Entrepreneur?

Technology is driving human progress

Here’s the thing. Technology is driving progress and pushing us faster than we’ve ever gone before. As everyone has access to innovative and influential equipment, our partnership with machines leads to new opportunities.

As an Entrepreneur it means we have to continuously invest to stay ahead of the game.  For teams, it means that you could quickly find yourself with a fresh employment opportunity that simply hasn't even been invented yet! 

The next generation learns differently

Just like we are a different set of workers to the people who came before us, the next generation will learn differently still. They will deal more in connectivity speeds and interconnectivity than we will.

The roles that this new era of workers will be different from ours. Consequently, there’s a need to adapt our businesses to match up with the future workplace.

For example, an architect of the future might design a building with materials that haven’t been invented yet. As a design company, how you can predict this and change your business to support it?

Is the next generation prepared?

An important question that we need to ask ourselves is whether or not the next generation is prepared to handle the challenges and daily responsibilities of an evolved workplace.

That’s where businesses like us come in. We help to train your team for skills they need to succeed in technology jobs and work with them to make sure that they are ready. Online Courses and live workshops help to equip people with the skills they need to thrive.

Automation is on the rise

Something that you can not deny is that automation is on the rise everywhere, including in businesses. You’ll find yourself noticing how machines can do a lot of the mundane and awkward tasks that we didn’t want to do previously, and it changes things for the future generation.

We need to train our people to try and manage the machines that they work alongside at the same time as performing all of their regular tasks.

The vital role of technology

Of course, we can’t forget about the vital role that technology plays. It’s increasingly reliance for most tasks is clear in an ecommerce business but even the most traditional workplaces are now beginning to implement online systems and deploy technology jobs alongside useful equipment and into their processes.

It has the biggest impact in businesses that have an underlying technology angle as for business owners they must continually evolve or else get beaten by the competition who have already implemented a better, faster system. 

This pace of change drives the landscape of online business and ecommerce jobs in a way we can’t yet predict, but it’s essential to forecast the capabilities we will need in the future and budget for training and hiring new talent accordingly.

Make It Happen In Your Business

The most important thing that you can do right now is to act. We know that there’s a lot of opportunities to begin the technology upskill process in your business.  Whether that's through online courses, e-learning, new hires or on the job training. 

We need to encourage our people to take risks, embrace technology uses in business and push towards a brighter future. Your people need to embrace the speed of change too, in order to help your business remain a powerful and commanding force in the marketplace.

Next Steps:

• Reflect on how your industry and your business is being changed by technology. What moves are your competitors already making towards taking the technological advantage?
• Consider where the capability gaps are in your team today.  What skills do you need in your business for the future and what skills do you have right now?
• Ask challenging, future led questions like: Can my team code?  Do they leverage the power of technology platforms in their daily work or are there still lots of manual work arounds in your business still?
• Seek the opportunities to use machine learning and automation in your business to streamline everything you do. Start with simple things like automating some basic processes and build up from there.