Deloitte’s `Tech Trends 2015 The fusion of business and IT’ Report says “We have it on good authority that the only constant in life is change. Yet, given the magnitude of the change we witness daily and the staggering pace at which it now unfolds, the term “constant” seems inadequate as we attempt to define and understand the highly mutable world around us.”
Undoubtedly, businesses are picking up speed, fuelled by fast and furious technology innovations. With more and more people adopting smartphones as the smart way to communicate, digitization has stomped into traditional industries such as banking and manufacturing. Cloud computing, mobile and unified communications technologies are essential for businesses today, irrespective of their size or scale. Small and Mid-sized Businesses (SMBs) are turning to these innovations to save time, increase productivity and decrease costs. They are looking at the mobile to decrease response time, the cloud to access cost effective technology and applications to be more agile to changing market conditions. This proliferation of applications and devices is providing customers with seamless connectivity, new modes of engagement, business agility, decreased costs and operational efficiency.
It is essential to harness the power of emerging technologies while viewing the future through magnifying glasses. It is easy to fall into a trap and adapt a technology solution which everyone is talking about. This kind of a reaction could actually lead to compromised investments and functional silos. It is, therefore, important to slice through the landscape into the heart of the business and from there reach out to technology innovations with the goal of making the business smarter, faster and cheaper.
For organizations, SMBs especially, it is difficult to separate business strategy from technology. However, the fact of the matter is, to remain competitive and increase productivity, there is the need for seamless merging of strategy and IT. Companies need to identify, check and then apply next generation technologies to the business road-map. This is a tightrope walk as it requires balancing actual present business scenario, with future requirements and then rewriting processes to transform the business. All this has to be achieved without losing sight of costs, complexity, risk and feasibility.
For SMBs, attracting and retaining customers, thinking of new products, services, and competencies are more important now than ever before. Technology is aiding this revolution. According to a report by Harvard Business Review Analytic Services, “57 percent of the business and technology leaders surveyed view IT as an investment that drives innovation and growth.”
Thus, using technology innovations, SMBs can compete with larger players. They can do more with less, instantaneously, remain accessible at all times and all achieve all this with limited investment. Collaboration is simple and backup is low cost and low maintenance. Engagement rules are changing and interaction is always on, on any device.
Excerpts from whitepaper: Seven Simple Ways for SMBs to leapfrog the Technology Explosion’
