Investing in Technology: An Effective Way to Achieve Efficiency

By: Angelo Kaufmann

Technology in a broad sense could be interpreted as an organization of knowledge for practical purposes. It can be as simple as a pen and paper, a Space X  rocket that finds its way back to its landing pad or a force that accelerates us from being gatherers and hunters to live a comfortable life in the 21st century. It allows us to tell the world what we had for breakfast this morning that nobody had to ever know through social media. Technology has been and is still greatly affecting our future and is shaping us in every way.

The application of technology is mainly driven by several factors with the goal of accomplishing a certain task efficiently and effectively. One of the reasons why companies need to invest in technology is to eliminate repetitive tasks in order for the employees to be efficient and effective as possible. Companies often hire highly skilled employees only to use their valuable skills in doing time-consuming errands. These skills are companies’ resources that must be valued and managed well and if not, it will become companies’ cost.

For example, a company hires a highly-skilled store manager to go through piles of paper works rather than to plan, implement, organize, monitor and evaluate store operations. Given this situation, imagine if the company has a technology that can handle sales and inventory that would free up his time in analyzing, collecting and storing data, things would be different –  in an efficient way.

Another example would be having an application that can become a company’s platform that could help them in marketing their products and services. The purpose of this application is to leverage the businesses and their market through this platform in which businesses offer deals and rewards for their customers to gain loyalty and promote their products and services. On the other hand, this application gives its customers the opportunity to satisfy their lifestyle in a convenient way. With this application, companies can have an effective marketing tool that can assist their marketing officer in creating marketing strategies and improve sales.

In my case, we develop software applications such as mobile applications, programs, and websites. Software is a unique technology that can be considered more of a service rather than a product due to its nature. We often overlook its value because some companies would think that investing in software technology is just an additional cost for them due to their intangible nature. We can not easily quantify the value of these applications because we are used to buying things that you can actually touch just like a cup of coffee.

Of course, for every investment there will be risks associated with it, technology is not an exception. Risks such as information security, lack of customer support, adaptability of the organization, and investing in the wrong application or application provider can hinder companies in investing in technology. Involving technology in your business is not cheap, though the software is intangible the number of working hours and technical people required to create and maintain an application is expensive.

In minimizing risks and making sure that this investment is worth the expense,  we need to take several things into consideration before investing in technology and one of them is the provider. Do they have quality products and good service?  If the answer is yes, then invest now in technology and be part of the smart future.

 

Angelo Kaufmann is a software engineer with 10 years of experience in security systems, software development, and strategic technical management. He is currently the Strategic Technical Manager of Satellite GPS Tracking and Asset Management System Corporation, the developer and owner of SafeSat and Findr.