On June 19th, 2019, Canada's Leading IT Conference & Exhibition came to Montreal’s Palais des Congrès, where they discussed the rise Reactive & Proactive Technology, SaaS, and the expectations of millennial workers.

Not only did our team attend iTech 2019, but GURUS is also proud to have been one of iTech’s sponsors. To make sure you didn’t miss out on the experience, we put together the key takeaways from iTech’s keynotes. 

 

iTech is an IT technology conference and exhibition focusing on Infrastructure, Cloud, Security, Data Centre, and Mobility. iTech Montreal featured a range of sponsors and attendees, from those in the ERP industry to companies representing the AI industry. 

Our GURUS team set up our booth, spoke with attendees, sat in on keynotes and even had our CEO and President, Martin McNicoll, speak about future-proofing growing business with Cloud technology. Needless to say, our team was enjoying iTech to the fullest. 

iTech’s opening keynote focused on reactive technology and meeting growing technology expectations in the workplace. Now enough blabber, let’s get into the good stuff. 

Side Note: We love going to events - check out some of our other keynote round-ups!

Adapting the Cloud Today to Your Business & Where Millenials' Expectations of Business Place Technology Differ from Boomers and Generation X
The hot topic of iTech’s opening keynote revolved around adapting Cloud technology to the modern workplace. More specifically, how it needs to be adapted to meet Millenials’ expectations of technology in the workplace, and how those expectations differ from those of Baby Boomers’ and Generation X employees. 

Millennials are quickly rising up the ranks in the tech industry. You can read all about this phenomenon in the millions of articles that are either complaining about or praising millennials. A new generation of workers brings a new generation of technology. It’s the cycle of life and technology. 

2019 iTech Montreal’s opening keynote began with Hichem Salah, a Microsoft technical solutions professional. As Salah spoke, slowly and in English, Microsoft’s system translated his words into French subtitles, right on the screen beside him, in real time! It was a pretty impressive display of technology to begin the keynote. 

It really goes to show how the business world is evolving to the point where people expect the same conveniences in the workplace as they would in their personal lives. 

The question becomes, how is the modern workplace changing to adapt to those evolving expectations? Thus comes the topic of Reactive vs Proactive Technology.

Reactive Technology vs Proactive Technology
Different generations of employees have different expectations for their technology. 
 

So it goes, full service for Baby Boomer and Generation X workers, and self-service for Millennials. 

Baby Boomers and Generation X wanted software catered to sustain their business needs. But whereas older generations sought to create technology that would do it all for them, the newer generations want technology that can do it all but can do it in a way that meets their individual expectations. 

With millennials swarming into the workplace with new practices in tow, the business place is rapidly changing to adapt. Not only is it becoming increasingly more proactive to keep up with massive leaps in technological evolution, but it’s also paving the way towards new solutions that push towards:

  • Automation
  • Greater ease of use
  • Frequent updates and customizations

A large part of Salah’s discussion centered around adapting your workplace to overcome old practices that may have been time-consuming and expensive to maintain, in order to make way for the new wave of simplified automation.

Old and New Technology
The old way is fading. Businesses used to rely on large, bulky systems specifically tailored towards their needs, whatever those needs were. Unfortunately, because their systems were so tailored and specified, they would quickly become outdated and would require heavy maintenance work.

This is now unacceptable. The Cloud today allows for live and constant updates, progressive upgrades and living, breathing solutions that are a touch of the finger away from being customized and updated, to ensure that your company never falls behind.

The most prominent software solutions today are no longer one-time plug and play solutions. You’re not forced to have to buy a new infrastructure for your processes every time you want to update them and go through the necessary transition period every year or three, as though you were swapping iPhones. The process may be simpler today, but we all remember the days watching your iPhone “restore from back-up” for several hours.

The one-size-fits-all model of business software no longer fits into a business world that is constantly changing. That is why so many impactful software platforms today are not constricted to hardware or one version that is plug and play. Here comes in SAAS as a new model, where the software your business uses evolves in real-time with your feedback and your customizations.

SaaS or Software as a Service has paved the way for modern solutions that will actively adapt to user feedback. So, your software can mold to your needs, instead of the other way around. 

Pro-Tip: For more information on why switching to SaaS is a great investment for your business, check out this article from Forbes.

For example, Oracle NetSuite releases two updates annually, and you can bet that any new features are based on active learning on the part of their team and inspired by your user feedback.

To sum it all up, iTech 2019 presented the idea that modern technology is made for its users. Its goal is to make its users’ lives easier by actually meeting their needs, no matter how often they change. 

The old way is changing - users are no longer forced to adapt to their software. Their software can now adapt to them.

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À propos Alyssa Lamberti

Alyssa Lamberti is a resident Blogger, Writer, and Marketing Content Specialist for GURUS Solutions. She comes from a background in English Literature, having graduated with a degree in English Literature from Concordia University, and has worked in Marketing and copywriting for companies in the tech and media industry. 

Like a true Montreal native, when she isn’t writing about ERP, you can catch her trying to find her zen at a yoga class or drinking iced coffee with a novel in her hands. She’s a fan of modernist fiction, prose, and anything from Milan Kundera. She has only a single weakness – her kryptonite is cat memes.