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TeamViewer 2021 Predictions: Businesses to Accelerate Remote Connectivity Infrastructure in 2021 with Focus on Wearables, AI and AR

vmblog 2021 prediction series 

Industry executives and experts share their predictions for 2021.  Read them in this 13th annual VMblog.com series exclusive.

Businesses to Accelerate Remote Connectivity Infrastructure in 2021 with Focus on Wearables, AI and AR

By Dr. Hendrik Witt, Executive Vice President Augmented Reality at TeamViewer

During the pandemic, businesses moved quickly to modernize their remote connectivity infrastructure. In 2021, we're going to see further refinements, as well as innovations with AR, smart glasses and other technologies that will also transform consumer adoption.

  • Collaboration technologies will continue to evolve and scale - When the pandemic struck, the companies that had invested in innovation were better positioned to manage through the disruption. They had the technology in place to manage a remote, work-from-home shift and could keep their businesses running effectively. Businesses with less mature infrastructure in place made smart investments to modernize. Issues such as privacy and GDPR compliance were complicating factors prior to the pandemic by addressed quickly in order to keep businesses moving. In the year ahead, we're going to see businesses reassess and re-evaluate their remote infrastructure to further refine and scale their capabilities to meet new challenges and adjust to a new normal.
  • The Speed of Innovation will Accelerate - The Pandemic continues to change how businesses deal with introducing new technology. While there used to be a sense that everything needed to be perfect before introducing new technology. Now, businesses are under pressure to move more quickly to deploy technology for a shorter time to impact. They need to get the benefits of the technology sooner.
  • Wearable technology will boost front line worker productivity - Every industry was impacted differently by the pandemic, but the technologies put in place to manage the disruption will continue to transform basic work functions in the years ahead. Automakers, for example, were struggling even before the pandemic with engineering and manufacturing challenges and a need for modernization. The challenges of keeping front line workers safe made it difficult to maintain manufacturing operations - and these disruptions were felt throughout the supply chain. This also impacted the retail and logistics space. In response, many businesses began to embrace all sorts of wearable technologies, including Smart Glasses, to keep workers connected, informed and safe. This has driven significant productivity and will continue to do so.
  • Businesses will look to collaboration technology for onboarding and training remote employees - As business expect the effects of the pandemic to extend well into 2021, they will explore ways to use connectivity solutions to train and onboard new employees, and also to train existing employees on new systems put in place during the pandemic. There are all sorts of solutions that are well positioned for this use case, acting as a guidance system that walks employees through everything they have to know.
  • Businesses look to a ‘hybrid' working model - Businesses that have created a foundation to work remotely are looking to apply that to a hybrid model in 2021 with some employees in the office and others remote. As a result, we're going to see some changes to product features to help take into account this situation. The fundamental infrastructure that powers remote connectivity is very well suited to manage a hybrid work environment, but we will see some new innovations and features tailored to this use case in the year ahead.
  • Smart glasses, AR ‘took off' during the pandemic and will continue to make an impact - Smart glasses got a significant push through the pandemic. People have accepted this as a new piece of technology as a wearable tools that frees up hands and helps employees get their jobs done. This is something that's here to stay and it will continue to be adopted and refined in 2021. The same holds true for the augmented reality (AR) paradigm, which helps provide work instructions and connectivity. When businesses need specialized knowledge and expertise onsite, they can look to AR as a way to tap the knowledge and expertise of a professional in another location.
  • Enterprise advancements will impact consumer adoption - With all of the technology advancements in the enterprise, we're seeing a mindset shift that will also be reflected on the consumer side. As this continues to happen, people will feel more comfortable in their private lives to also explore augmented reality, smart glasses and other innovations to stay connected. This may include more widespread adoption of these technologies for trouble shooting issues within the home, especially as technicians are not always able to be onsite.

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About the Author

Hendrik Witt 

Hendrik joined TeamViewer as a result of TeamViewer's acquisition of the AR specialist Ubimax and is responsible for driving product development in the AR field. 

Hendrik is one of the three founders of Ubimax. With more than 15 years of professional experience in the areas of innovation, software technology, and strategy development, Hendrik was responsible for corporate strategy and product development as CEO of Ubimax. His immense contribution transformed Ubimax into the world market leader for industrial augmented reality solutions. Before founding Ubimax, he worked for many years as a strategy consultant for Arthur D. Little and as a technology and innovation consultant for TZI in Bremen.

Hendrik holds a PhD in computer science from the University of Bremen and the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta, USA.

Published Monday, November 30, 2020 8:01 AM by David Marshall
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