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Emerging Technology Trends for the Workplace


Tech Can Work It Out


 

SAP has published its trend report for 2018, exploring the technologies that will have a significant impact over the next 5–10 years, including those we will deploy next at large scale, like machine learning, blockchain, and conversational systems, as well as those trends further out on the timescale, such as quantum computing and neuromorphic hardware. Among them also to be found: the contextual workspace.

 



 

Digitalization, alternative ways of working, artificial intelligence research and similar fields present new challenges and opportunities to our societies. How will people work in the near future? And how do you prepare for these scenarios? The trend report highlights the impact technological innovations have on the economy of tomorrow, also highlighting where we will work, how we will work and how tech is impacting our workplaces.

 

Brand Value and Innovation

Emerging technologies such as conversational UX, intelligent personal assistants and work stream collaborations will foster a new type of working: instead of pre-defined tasks and teams, fixed pathways and role-based insights, work will shift to a much more flexible approach, the report predicts. The need for faster and better innovation and improved productivity, and the shift towards high-value work will drive the evolution of improved workspaces. Equally, our economies are shifting from putting value on the number of manufactured goods on the number of innovations they come up with. It is no co-incident that the most valuable company in the world has also been named the most innovative.

 

“Knowledge work will be more consumer like with contextual interfaces and new, social and open collaboration infrastructures and individuals will be able to identify the right people across all silos, networking with them more easily”


SAP Trend Report on Emerging Technologies


 

 

The Evolution of the Workspace

With everything changing about the way we work, similarly where we work changes along as well. In order to enable these new working styles, offices have undergone a major change from cubicles to open space offices, home office and co-working spaces. The “Evolution of The Desk”, a video by the Harvard Innovation Lab that went viral in 2014 showcases how technology has impacted how we work and how our change in working style has impacted technology in return, encouraging us to take the office with us wherever we go.

 

We wanted to illustrate how technology has changed our world, un-cluttering our desks and simplifying our lives.“


Harvard Innovation Lab


 

Dedicated and pre-defined tasks and desks will soon no longer be required by the type of work we do, with technology enabling sustainable, resource-efficient space utilization while still providing the space modern collaboration-based workstyles need. Supporting both team and individual needs, employers have to start rethinking how to use their space accordingly for predicted challenge-orientated and self-organizing project teams, offering much more flexibility with regards to workspaces to their employees. Likewise, based on this rising and changing demand for flexible and individual solutions, people assigning those spaces need to gain more data-driven insights, simplified space management options with a, to transform work environments in order to keeping their fingers on the pulse.

 



 

 

Enabling the Contextual Workspace

Improved building utilization requires visual workspace management solutions for accurately defining space types, assigning individuals and teams to workspaces and tracking utilization using sensors and the latest IoT technologies. At the same time this will lead to reduced real estate expense and increased employee productivity by providing earlier explained in-demand workspaces through hot spot analysis. Workspace management processes will be accelerated by visually creating space and stacking plans to get work done faster and more intuitively. And because money matters here as well, with real estate being the second biggest cost item on corporate balance sheets – just after personnel -  allocating real estate occupancy expenses to cost centers will drive workspace ownership to the departmental level for an overall access to capacity, cost data, and space productivity.

 



 

With the right solution and technologies, companies are empowered to transform their corporate real estate strategies by improving asset performance, optimizing efficiency through innovation while ensuring regulatory compliance – and the best possible work spaces for their employees, creating the necessary infrastructure for the contextual workspace.

 

More Information

SAP Cloud for Real Estate, location management option, has just been enhanced by workspace management features.

To get an overview of SAP’s offerings on real estate and workspace management visit sap.com/realestate or drop us a message at rethink.real.estate.management@sap.com

For in-depth presentations, attend SAPPHIRE NOW 2018 in Orlando, with several sessions on these topics. Get an overview here.