Inthe UK’s recent Autumn Budget, Chancellor Phillip Hammond vouched for a plan to build a British economy that is “fit for the future”. While many think this is a given – Britain is, after all, leading in digital transformation – seeing the Autumn Budget announcement centred on emerging technologies is rather reassuring, especially in a time of political and economic turmoil. From investment in AI to aiding 5G research, the Chancellor’s announcement set the path for the future of tech in Britain, and underlined the role emerging technologies will play in impacting our lives in the next few years.
This being said, many organisations wonder what exactly does this announcement mean for their business – is it something they should care about, or perhaps these investments won’t impact them?
Below, we look at the three core areas where we’ll see UK organisations benefit off the back of this year’s Autumn Budget:
- Connectivity
Keep an eye on this next big trend! As technology increasingly enables better flexible working practices and these become more mainstream, organisations need to find the best ways to accommodate employees who work remotely. After all, when implemented in an efficient, smart way, technology has the potential to give employees the freedom to work from where they do their best work each day. Connectivity is the secret to productive workforce, and businesses must take advantage of the opportunities they are presented with.
- Artificial Intelligence
Emerging technologies such as AI are becoming increasingly fundamental to an organisations’ business strategy. Empowering people with the right pieces of technology means they have more time to invest in performing their job at the highest level. In this way, organisations will begin to reap the benefits of adopting AI solutions to automate repetitive operations, helping to drive efficiencies and free up resources so they can invest in more valuable activities.
- Digital skills
Digital skills are only beginning to flourish now. In the next couple of years, we’re likely to witness these becoming more and more integrated into daily business. In the last year alone, we’ve seen countless reports confirm this. So what does the news that the government will triple the number of trained computer science teachers to 12,000 have to do with organisations?
To start with, the age of digital disruption is seeing business models, industries and working practices transform, and this means that jobs that did not exist a few years ago are being created now. Next generations will be able to pick their career from a very different pool than out generation did, and digital skills are at the very core of this transformation. For organisations, this means that even today they’re seeing an increasing demand for new skill sets in virtually every job and profession.
No doubt it is great to see the government proactively taking great strides to ensure UK organisations are properly equipped to remain digitally competitive. The question is: Are organisations actually ready to adapt to these changes? While there is no straightforward answer to this, it was positive to see our latest report reveal that half of senior business leaders would describe their organisation as ‘digital-first’. Although it is clear we’ve still got a long way to go, at least we’re on the right path.