Why Technology-enabled Businesses Will Lead?

Technology should no more be seen one-dimensionally and as something which is only accountable for the sustenance of a business. Perceiving it merely as a facilitator of daily chores like Accounting or Payroll Management is a mindset that businesses are getting rid of, and rightly so. They are establishing an effective coupling with groundbreaking technologies, to strive towards innovation and excellence. This is a welcome shift in perspectives and business leaders need to jump on the bandwagon to let their business expand, restructure, and cater to the dynamic marketplace.

Businesses cannot be run unilaterally anymore, and varied perspectives are required to be put on the table, be it of the customers or subject experts, to come up with out of the box solutions.  This can be achieved only when businesses are a part of the social media matrix, where customers and subject experts come within the ambit of an interlaced structure, and share as much relevant information as deemed fit. Within this matrix, how much responsive a business is towards customers’ needs, matters a lot. For that, businesses need to shake hands with technologies like big data and advanced data analytics, so that they can analyze every transaction and capture insights from every customer interaction. A fastidious analysis of such voluminous and complex data can propel businesses to experiment more and tweak their business models so that they can enhance the customer experience.  Overall this approach can bring a radical transformation in research, and let businesses achieve the intended innovation and excellence.

Pressing on the point further, we must look at how technology is enabling different verticals like retail and manufacturing to achieve refined processes. For instance, in the retail business (having multiple points of sale across different locations), instituting price changes or new promotions has become a lot more convenient through a centrally managed software. Just take away a well architected and implemented software from the scheme of things, and such tasks would become tedious, and the business would fall back to its rudimentary ways. A glance at the manufacturing business tells the same story. Here also, robotics is rapidly changing the rules of the game as machines are turning more and more into humanoids. They are emulating the typical capabilities of humans such as sensing, dexterity, and trainability, and are substituting them in tasks such as inspection, assemblage, and packaging of products. Such leaps of technology have proven to be cost-effective and have enabled manufacturers to invest more in innovation. It has opened avenues for a much more skilled workforce which is at ease with the cutting edge technologies, thus having a positive cascading effect on the productivity of the manufacturing business.

Businesses are no more apprehensive and are readily becoming part of smart networks to instantly communicate information pertaining to product distribution, product failure, and other critical details, thanks to a technology like Internet of things, which is an ensemble of smart devices working in tandem. These smart devices that are embedded with sensors and actuators are assimilating and transmitting information on a massive scale and creating massive network effects and opportunities. This is helping businesses discern newer capabilities of products, and paving way for exciting business models.

Business leaders shouldn’t retreat because of any minor disruption in their commercial relationships or because of any unforeseen business priorities that may come along, on this trajectory of innovation. Without a shadow of a doubt, these technology-enabled business trends are just what the doctor ordered for the new wave of enthusiastic consumers and for companies that aspire to be pacy.

About the Author 

Mr. Sanjay Agarwala is the Co-Founder and Managing Director of Eastern Software Systems Pvt. Ltd. Among other things, he is considered an authority on “Doing Business in Africa” and has spoken extensively on the subject at various industry seminars over the years. He is on the Executive Committee of India’s Software Export Promotion Council. Prior to founding ESS, he worked in technology as well other industry domains. He is an alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. In his leisure time, Mr. Agarwala loves reading and is also an avid gardener.