In her interaction with the Suryadatta business school students, Marissa G. who was in India on behalf of Rotary International from Chicago, spoke on “GLOBAL TECH TRENDS”.

She identified 3 trends – “Cloud computing”, “E-Commerce and Mobile Applications”, and “User Experience Design”

Marissa G. spoke about the work life in American corporations, with laptops complemented by the iPad and the moving of all data from the PC to the cloud for accessing from anywhere via the Smartphone and iPad. She highlighted the importance of good verbal English communication skills needed during videoconferencing among global team members. It is important to have good communication skills as there is the need for quick and prompt responses in all business situations while dealing with geographically dispersed colleagues and business partners.

At the occasion Marissa G., member of Rotary International from Chicago said, “Almost all major IT companies are already offering certain products and services on cloud and in one of the Gartner report its highlighted that by 2015 20% of non-IT Global 500 companies will be cloud service providers. This gets goes to show how big and vast the market is for such innovative platforms.”

Marissa G. also talked about QRcodes (Quick Response Codes). She pointed out that QRcodes are becoming pervasive and all businesses are getting QR (Quick Response) codes for easier tracking in various apps especially to facilitate e-commerce. In US for a product you capture the picture of a QRcode and competitor’s prices for identical products are flashed so the shopper can choose easily between brands based on cost and quality. With augmented reality applications, by 2015 companies will generate 50% web sales through social presence and mobile applications.

She remarked that soon ‘User Experience Design’ will be critical as the website which is easy to use will be the one you will revisit. Ninety percent corporate applications will be supported on personal devices like mobiles and iPads. All this will encourage collaboration and communication with others to increase knowledge and understanding.

A collaborative work style with use of E-groups to keep oneself updated on the latest happenings in your domain and an integrated access to Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter was stressed. Before any meeting these resources are used to be better prepared for the business interaction. Keeping oneself updated with using the latest technology was illustrated by the example of how she realized that iPad opened a whole new world to her when she started using it after seeing that even older colleagues had mastered how to use it!