Bevil Wood­ing

As 2013 drew to a close, it was clear that we en­tered an age of dig­i­tal con­ver­gence.

Ad­vances in telecom­mu­ni­ca­tions and elec­tron­ics have seen rad­i­cal in­no­va­tions in busi­ness and con­sumer tech­nol­o­gy and a blur­ring of lines be­tween per­son­al and cor­po­rate tech. There is no in­di­ca­tion of a slow­ing in the pace of in­no­va­tion.

The trends that shaped the past year will not eas­i­ly yield to busi­ness as usu­al in the new year. Tech­nol­o­gy will con­tin­ue to be one of the most sig­nif­i­cant fac­tors defin­ing busi­ness prac­tice and busi­ness op­por­tu­ni­ties for some time to come.

So what does 2014 hold? And how should com­pa­nies, ex­ec­u­tives and IT man­agers pre­pare them­selves for this ren­dezvous. Here are five key tech­nol­o­gy trends ex­pect­ed to sig­nif­i­cant­ly im­pact the busi­ness and con­sumer space in 2014.