CompTIA Top 10 Emerging Technologies List Highlights AI, IoT Use Cases
AI and IoT are not standalone products, but components of larger solutions designed to drive business outcomes.
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Predictive sales prioritize prospective customers by filtering out unqualified leads so sales reps can spend more time on more promising leads. Many sales and marketing platforms now offer scoring modules that forecast results and develop campaigns intended to generate higher quality leads.
The reasons MSPs haven’t yet dipped their toes in the water with AI and IoT comes down to not knowing where to start and not having an innovation mindset, Khali Henderson said.
“We’re planning to help with both of those things with our playbooks (to come) and innovation assessment (available now),” she said. “And we’re considering a national roadshow to bring the message directly to partners where they’re are actually building their businesses.”
Customer relationship management (CRM) and service delivery optimization systems monitor and analyze customer buying and usage patterns to increase sales efficiencies and profitability. Furthermore, sales reps use this information to better understand their customers and identify opportunities to cross-sell and upsell.
Chatbots and digital assistants are applications used to conduct online conversations via text or text-to-speech, in lieu of live agents. This allows companies to scale, leveraging existing resources, while delivering a “human-like” customer experience.
MSPs already are embracing AI-driven chatbots on websites that help companies go digital-first for sales, support and service delivery, Henderson said.
Companies can enhance their security against cyberattacks with AI-powered cybersecurity platforms. AI-powered cybersecurity threat detection platforms leverage machine learning (ML) to analyze historical data, and autonomously predict and detect potential cyber threats.
AI-driven cybersecurity is a hot opportunity for MSPs and a natural step for them along with managing their customer’s IT networks, Henderson said.
AI-powered tools blend data from various sources and automatically compile predictive analytics about customers to gain insight into preferences and, in turn, create marketing campaigns to capture them as qualified leads.
“In some cases, AI/IoT have proved to help vendors/partners cut costs or create efficiencies for their customers that their competitors cannot achieve,” Henderson said. “Many executive leaders also are now saying they need to incorporate AI into their businesses without really understanding how to do it or what it can do for their business. Partners educated on the application of these emerging technologies will become the go-to resource for implementing such enhancements, differentiating themselves from their competition.”
Asset tracking streamlines labor-intensive and error-prone equipment and inventory management. It does so by monitoring assets and their use in real-time throughout a location, such as a building, warehouse, yard or campus.
MSPs are finding IoT opportunities in the verticals they serve, such as asset tracking for medical or manufacturing, Henderson said.