New Technologies Appear In Some Locations That Offer New Opportunities
Technology advances
relentlessly. The pace of technology tends to be uneven due to the
unpredictability of breakthroughs. While there have been many successes, it can
be argued that there have been many failures. Widespread deployment of PCs in
the 1980s often led to lowered productivity without networking. More recently,
the adoption of portable, handheld devices has found to be wasteful since there
were no real business applications. To take advantage of new technology requires
a company to assess the following:
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What are the real benefits of the technology?
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If the technology is not pursued, what are the impacts?
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Are competitors likely to use the technology soon?
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Is the technology sufficiently mature to be able to be
placed in many countries around the world?
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Is there sufficient infrastructure of support available?
Answering these questions can lead you to defer the new technology
until it has matured.
Impact
New technology has benefits, but it is also disruptive.
Everything around the technology is affected. Thus, it has been the case that
while there are long-term benefits, the short-term effects of the new technology
are quite negative.
Prevention
There should be a technology watch capability in companies
of substantial size. This provides an early warning to new technologies. The
company can then be more selective and follow a proactive approach to the
selected technology. Unfortunately, much technology is adopted in a reactive
mode that is not fully thought through.
Action
If a technology has been adopted for use in a company, one
of the parts of the project should be an assessment to determine the readiness
of each company location to accept and use the technology.
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