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Technology - Leveraging Technological Change
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Anurag Wakhlu 08/18/2005
Technology is a juggernaut shaping global business operations and
environments in ways similar to gravity defining the space-time
continuum. One can imagine different businesses situated on concentric
layers, the radius of each being inversely proportional to its
involvement with the central technology and the level of technological
sophistication. Leveraging technological change is then analogous to
surfing the "technological ripples" that emanate when such an
environment is perturbed, harnessing the titanic potential of such
change to propel an organization, versus inertly bobbing in, or being
toppled by its tidal wake. Effects of technological change include
increased automation and quantum jumps in processing power, emergence
of new business paradigms and environments, radical changes in existing
methodologies and, virtually diminishing physical limits and
constraints. Examples are: faster production lines, giga-Hertz
machines, e-commerce and the Internet, non-invasive "keyhole" surgery
and vanishing geographical barriers using high-speed communication
links. In such an advanced technological environment,
management of technology plays a strategic and pivotal role. To manage
effectively in such dynamic environments managers must keep abreast of
technology, appraise advancements in technology from the perspective of
gaining a competitive edge and embrace such change to enhance their
organizations’ services. "Technological leveragability" is inversely
proportional to time or competition (statistically assuming that
competition sets in with time, even if the technology is patented). It
has a short half-life. It also has an inherent "dormant deadline" that
is activated by the first-mover, and advanced by followers. Thereafter,
the value addition or enhancement becomes a standard feature, and
further down time - its absence is a deficiency. For example: music has
to be digitally accessible today. One can already see ripples on the
fabric of movie making/distribution technologies. Coming soon to an
iPod near you? Leverage @ change. Technology decision-makers have to
move fast. However, as businesses use increasingly advanced
technologies, they become proportionately susceptible to its change,
because the "technological acceleration" at the "epicenter" is the
greatest. Hence, managers should choose the appropriate technology for
defining their strategies, considering practical issues such as
development time and costs, technological obsolescence over the project
span, and risks associated with nascent technologies, instead of merely
opting for the most sophisticated one. Additionally, continual
evaluation of the chosen technologies underlying or defining the
business strategies is essential for managing technological change.
In addition, managers have to be aware of, and research the possible
markets created by technological advancements. Failure to do so results
in missed opportunities. For example, even well known technology
behemoths initially overlooked the emergence of the now ubiquitous
Internet. Now, as the world goes increasingly online, web presence has
become a necessity. Advancements in Internet technologies have created
multi-billion dollar e-commerce/e-tailing/e-service industries that
'brick & mortar' businesses have not been able to ignore. Such
change is relentless and inevitable. Wireless, nano and bio
technologies, highly sophisticated research, artificial intelligence
etc - to name a few - have combined to conjure means and devices that
are establishing trends for not only the way we operate today, but also
for our interaction with the real as well as virtual worlds of
tomorrow. Understanding and harnessing the change-potential, and then
riding the change-wave can slingshot a business far ahead of
competition, an example of which we see in the digital/online music
space. Napster and other file sharing systems changed the way music was
accessed. The iPod rewrote the rules, again. The others are following.
But a successful “videoPod†is still up for grabs, as is an RFID based
“killer appâ€, or the next “emailâ€. The Web is being searched today, by
the Googles, Microsofts and the Yahoos. It will be “understoodâ€
tomorrow (“Semantic Webâ€), and then, maybe “visualized†– by the next
change-the-game company that surfs this technological ripple.
In our diminishingly-differentiated hyper-competitive world, leveraging technological change is now a strategic imperative. (Anurag is the Founder & CEO of fundPeek.com, a web-based Portfolio Analysis & Management Platform. He has over 12 years of experience, primarily in the financial IT industry, at firms such as State Street Global Advisors (SSgA), Fidelity, Yantra Corp and Infosys.
Anurag has an MBA from Babson College, and a B-Tech from the I.I.T., Bombay.
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