IT Management And Business Evolution

When you live in the world of IT Management, like we do here at CDN Technologies, sometimes you forget where many of the business processes we see each day have come from. 

If I think back and look at what many current business owners and managers may have experienced in their careers I realize that the world we take for granted now is substantially different.

• A short 30 year ago time frame would mean that most offices did not have computers.  There really was no such thing as a PC (the hot button in those days was a Commodore 64) and computing was only available to companies who could afford massive main frame systems.  Today's basic smart phone has more computing power.

• This means that most offices had to build paper intensive systems to track their processes.  Invoicing, shipping, receiving, product planning, production process management all depended upon paper flows to ensure things ran smoothly.

• Communication was largely by, telephone, written documents or by teletype if being sent long distance and speed was an issue.  The 'new technology' in the mid 80's was the fax.  This magic device permitted a paper document to be sent over the phone.  It cost over $2500 for a basic one and most were closer to $5000 or more.

• This means that typewritten (word processors were around but mostly used in professional offices like lawyers) correspondence, done in copies with using carbon paper was the primary record for most transactions.

• The Internet was a new feature of the mid 90's when it gradually came out of the hands of government and academia and more businesses were able to get access to text based email and internet communications.  Wikipedia documents the invention of the World Wide Web as an 1989 event.  For example the first ISP in Hamilton ON was opened in 1993 and access was through various speeds of dial up modem.

• This means that rapid communication depended upon fax and telephone for delivery of any kind of documentation.

• Small business networks were certainly coming into existence with PCs on desks and perhaps a centralized 'server' which handled print queues and some centralized data storage.

• The late 90's and 2000 saw a rapid commercialization of the Internet as consumers and businesses started look to this new communication tool for faster and more effective communication.  Less than fourteen years ago the 'Dot Com' collapse on the stock market saw much of the rapid investment in technology stocks destroyed.  Survivors took several years to recover but the decade to follow saw the computerization of business in all sizes fully entrenched.  The millenial date bug was the big issue for late 1998/9 but after billions was spent it turned out to be a non issue for most businesses come 2000.

• This means that the trends to digital information grew and rapidly started to alter the way that businesses and other organizations consumed and shared information.

• Email became the preferred communication medium for most consumers and businesses.

• Social media platforms started to develop.  Facebook was founded in 2004 and reached a billion uses by 2012.  Business adoption of social media as a promotion strategy grew in the decade and became fully entrenched with the turn of the second decade of the century.

• Telecommunications changed with the development of the cell phone which evolved into the smart phone which dominates the phone market world wide today.  The advances in mobile platforms have now transformed how information is exchanged and obtained today. 

• This means that instant communication of everything has become a norm.  Digital information is the primary exchange for many users and has become a necessity for every business.

• A whole generation of twenty and thirty year olds is now functioning in the workplace without the experiences of their predecessors.  The implications of this digital generation as significant as they are used to working with small chunks of digital data, rapidly obtained and transmitted.  Paper is no longer the norm for this group of workers.

• Smart devices are a given for both consumer and business transactions.  Mobile platforms are critical for most businesses to function. 

In the lifetime of many of today's active workers, the whole world of business processes has evolved from one where transactions could take days, even weeks to complete.  Paper was the dominant business information tool through correspondence, transaction records, marketing materials and process documentation.

The business evolution which the rapid and all encompassing revolution brought about by low cost, powerful computing capabilities is an ongoing and rapidly changing world. 

The new buzz word is 'Big Data" the compilation of all of the many transactions which occur and then the process of analyzing this information to affect future activity.  One of the early players in this game was Walmart and its information processing work has changed the face of retailing. 

For a comprehensive look at the impacts of digital business you can reference an extensive study produced by McKinsey Center For Business Technology in 2012.  One of the comments they make is, "Our research shows that more than 75 percent of the value added by the internet is in traditional industries."  The study documents as series of articles looking at the impacts and implications of the digital business evolution.

Those traditional businesses have learned how to adapt from the business practices of 30 years ago and apply the new tools and new methods in was which have given them gains from the evolution which is occuring.

Where is your business in this process?  What further steps do you need to take?

 

     

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Photo credit:  IDC Data as reported in Perspectives on Digital Business, MCkinsey Center For Business Technology.