Business and technology integration in modern enterprises

Business and Technology

Can All Our Business and Societal Problems Be Solved by Technology?

For lasting change to occur in any business or society, the coordination of people, processes and technology need to occur. While this triad of elements has been expressed in many different ways, it is the paradigm of how all successful technology integration into daily lives occurs. The pace of innovation for a given product or service, for example the initial launch of smartphones or the first laptop PCs, can hasten or increase the speed of these three elements working together. Yet it is the synchronization of process improvements, technology advances and people's willingness to change that lead to problems being solved.

How Lasting Change Happens

Lasting change all begins with a person's willingness to change and begin to embrace new concepts and processes for how they live and work. The role of technology then is to enable people and enterprises to attain their objectives in the shortest amount of time at the lowest relative costs. Technology is not a panacea to complex organizational and process problems, yet it is a catalyst for successfully navigating difficult and complex change over time. Overcoming resistance to change in highly structured organizations is especially difficult as roles and responsibilities have been in place for decades. Technology's role in these situations is to serve as a foundation for selectively modifying those process areas that need to be made more efficient and responsive to customers' and stakeholder's needs. Technology can be the enabler of organizational transformation and growth, freeing even the most rigid organization to concentrate less on retaining the status quo and more on how to excel for the customers and stakeholders it serves. Technology must also empower employees and members of organizations to find meaning and value in their work. The triad factors of autonomy, mastery and purpose, which so many studies of human motivation have shown to be so critical for long-term learning to occur, can be augmented and strengthened with technology. Technologies that promote collaboration and communication also lead to greater levels of performance in enterprises of all sizes. The focus on how to make organizations more effective and market-driven is critical. Information system technologies and programs can accomplish this with a strong focus on delivering measurable results over the long-term. The impact of technology then is a catalyst of continual personal and professional growth over time.

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