The 2000s have been an incredible time in the business world. Amazon has become an absolute beast that gives brick and mortar businesses everywhere a run for their money, and technology has given a lot of young upstarts a platform to start businesses cheaply and potentially rake in huge profits. Online business has moved the ground beneath people’s feet, and businesses are only going to become more intertwined with the online world because of the innovations offered by the cloud.
Virtual Businesses
It’s not unusual to hear stories of companies founded by one or two people that service millions. That’s only becoming more common as technology costs plummet. Businesses that can offer services exclusively through the Internet don’t require the owners to purchase office space, and if they do, it’s often more about the image of the company than it is anything else. Creating a physical location outside of their homes lends weight to the business and what it does, and it may ultimately be more convenient to operate within that environment than to create work space within a house or an apartment, but it isn’t absolutely necessary
The fact that this is possible, and that it’s so easy it’s becoming common, is incredible. Soon every business will be challenged by online competitors that will claim that the cloud can do everything they can do, and not only that, it can do it better. The major pizza chains may soon have to compete with online pizza delivery services that can provide quick, cheap food to people across the country. People are becoming much more mobile, and an online mail service that enables people to quickly acquire a temporary P.O. Box wherever they’re at may become a reality within the next decade. Technology has reached a point where everything that was promised at the inception of consumer Internet services will not only be realized, entrepreneurs will take the world in a direction that few ever dreamed possible.
The Cloud Has Changed Work
People no longer need to be at the same location in order to collaborate on large projects. They can set up a cloud storage account that every relevant person is able to access; work can be done at any time of day from any location, and the results can be uploaded back into the cloud. There are very few projects that require people to travel somewhere, and the ones that do can be completed as soon as the necessary legwork has been done. The cloud enables workers to access their files from nearly any device they please, and communication is so quick and simple that it’s easy to keep everyone on the same page or to cover potential problems. There’s simply no way to compare the old workplace with the new cloud-powered business world. Even companies that maintain a strong physical presence need to be wired into the cloud in order to compete.
People Embrace Change
It took time for people to adapt to new technology at first, but that changed around the time that cellphones became commonplace. There’s a much larger segment of the population that keeps in step with iteration of popular devices like the iPhone, and e-commerce is so integral to the modern world that most people wouldn’t know what to do without it.
Even people within developing countries use cellphones, and a high number of them own smartphones and subscribe to data packages. Since consumers have gained access to so much technology that’s able to connect to the Internet, their appetite for new services and innovations has become insatiable. The world has entered a period where radical new paradigms are adopted every few years; it’s the first time in the history of commerce that change has occurred to rapidly and steadily over the course of a decade.
Lifestyles of the Future
There’s no slowing change or going back to the way things were. Technology is practically an extension of people’s bodies, and it’s so cheap to get from place to place that many people spend very little time at one location anymore. Even those who do stay in one spot for an extended period of time are so wired into the intricate framework that technology has created that they can’t unplug; to do so would be the same as excommunicating themselves from the rest of society.
Technology makes everything cheaper and more convenient. It enables people to work wherever they like instead of having to be tied down to an office building. It enables people to quickly locate services within their vicinity as long as they’re in an area with a cellphone tower. The digital world is weaving itself into the DNA of every business, institution and individual on Earth and the smartest businessmen will either evolve accordingly or jump on the bandwagon while the tech is relatively fresh.
Roger Corbin is an entrepreneur that utilizes virtual services, the cloud and technology to securely send large files to clients.
