IN TECH
Tech Trends
Page 12 | www.incentiveandmotivation.com
See the future with
Virtual Reality
While only 3% of people use VR
right now, around a third of people
think that it will transform their
work environments in the coming
decade. The headsets allow you
to enjoy up to 32 sensors, and
2160x1200 graphics, making an
immersive experience where
anything is possible. Holiday tours
may be shown within a VR headset.
Surgeries may be ‘pre-run’ in the
safety of VR. Car sales, promotional
wear – there is no limit to what
could be shown within the VR
space in the future. Already, “Wild
Within” is a VR experience that
promotes tourism in Canada’s
British Columbia allowing viewers
to travel through a rainforest
via the coastline or mountain,
and according to Forbes, 50%
of customers in the first year
of London dealership’s Audi VR
experience pilot ordered vehicles
without a physical test drive, basing
their purchase decision upon their
virtual experience.
Enhance Internal
Communication
with Slack Make business
more efficient with
Amazon Alexa
One study from Prescient Digital
Media highlighted that 31%
of employees never use their
company intranet, and only 13%
use it on a daily basis. Some
common detractors are that there
are a multitude of ways to get
in touch via email or Skype and
when it comes to saving files, again
there are many options internally…
desktop or Cloud based services
like Google Drive and Dropbox. If
there aren’t any clear rules and it
feels messy, you may want to look
at Slack. With 2.7 million users,
one of the key reasons to Slack’s
success is the ability to integrate.
For example, integrating Asana, the
task management tool for teams
will allow you to send updates to
chosen channels when a task is
created, completed, or gets a new
comment. Another integration –
‘appear.in’ - provides one-click video
conferences right in your browser
without requiring PIN codes or
additional software. This integration
lets your team use the commands
to start a video conference in your
channel, making it easy for others
to easily join the call! On top of
that, the integrations and ‘bots’ are
well worth looking at. Healthy bot
could remind employees to make
healthier habits like stretching at
intervals or drinking water, whilst
‘Vote’ allows teams to anonymously
vote on anything. The RBC has suggested that by
the year 2020 Amazon could have
sold 60 million Echo / Alexa devices
within just one year, making it
capable of generating a huge $5
billion in revenue.
Obviously, this is a dream for any
stakeholder of Amazon – but what
about businesses? Just this year,
Reward Gateway launched the
first ever Employee Virtual and
Augmented Reality… meaning that
their clients will be able to ask their
Amazon Echo details about the
performance of their engagement
programme, what company news
is trending and which of their
benefits are proving most popular,
as well as asking Alexa to recite
this data within a specified time
period. This is the first step towards
the next generation of technology
in the workplace and means our
clients will have another tool at
their disposal to build a meaningful
connection with their employees
Networking Apps
We all have a smartphone so it
makes sense that you don’t just
use it to look at photos. Install a
business app to find events in your
area, try out Happening, the app
that allows you to save events to
calendar and send RSVP’s. You can
also see who else in your network
is attending – ideal if you want
sales coverage. Meetup is another
good alternative, especially if you
are in a niche business. Find like-
minded people in the local area,
and as the name suggests, meet
up! Meetings are pre-arranged, or
you can decide to create your own
event for a small fee. If you attend a
lot of conferences and networking
events, you’ll likely collect a lot of
business cards from the people
you meet - something that still
isn’t really going digital yet. Take a
look at Camcard or Card Munch…
professional business card readers
that store photos taken of cards
and allow extra notes to be made,
ideal if you need to send leads back
to base.
Influencer Marketing
It’s not a gadget or a tool, but it’s
a trend that’s happening digitally.
If you aren’t aware of your brand
influencers and advocates,
now is the time to start taking
influencer marketing seriously.
A recent study from Bloglovin’
found that influencers motivate
action in over 60% of digitally
savvy women, with 55% of sales
attributed to sponsored posts on
social networks and, according to
Hubspot, 71% of consumers being
more likely to make a purchase
based on a social media reference.
When Levi’s added a Facebook “like”
button to its website, the brand
experienced 40 times the website
traffic. Likewise, American Eagle
customers spent 57 percent more
after a “like” button was added!
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