Embracing Technology
- High-performance businesses view IT as a strategic asset—a source of both operational excellence and competitive advantage so shouldn't we too?
- IT is not merely a cost but a critical contributor to the business, focused on improving business value and performance.
- Spend more selectively and informed by strategy with an emphasis on value creation and you will come out ahead of the game.
- The real benefits for your business and payoffs come from top-level commitment to solving today's problems and addressing today's strategic priorities in a way that puts IT in the mainstream of tomorrow's organisational strategy. It can take an upfront investment, albeit a moderate one, but it will pay off quickly and well.
Think about it... The managers that believe they have already embraced all things internet are almost certainly putting these organisations at greater risk from more able, technically savvy competitors in the competitive cultural marketplace.
There are always winners and losers but many traditional businesses have harnessed the internet and IT highly successfully and added significant value to their proposition. Take TESCO's for example, the National Portait Gallery or The Tate Modern! Ah, yes... big, well funded and resourced you say, that's why!
An organisations website for example is now the first point of reference for potential customers, existing customers, potential funders and strategic partners.
- Online retail business, albeit still a fraction of total retail sales, is growing steadily.
- Broadband Internet service is increasingly prevalent, and has become a broadly affordable service in many parts of the world
- At today's prices, personal computers have almost become impulse purchases
- Internet use has long since ceased to be a novelty or something for only the technically elite. Nearly 70 percent of North Americans use the Internet, as do more than a third of Europeans. Over 90% of UK households have an internet connection of sort and mobile phone use is nearing saturation in many markets. Don't foget, almost everyone seems to have a BlackBerry, PDA or an MP3 player within reach with Bluetooth, wirless or other types of connectivity.
But it's not just about websites or ad-hoc exhibition interactives.
A few possibilities to ponder:
- Generate new points of sale
- Generate new sale products at low cost
- Compliment existing sale products with added value content
- Streamline information management
- Guage out a greater geographical market penetration and draw
- An Eager and Tech-Savvy User Base is waiting to be engaged
- Collaboration between businesses and organisations - globally!
- eExhibitions, permanent and temporary - unconfined by the boundaries of the physical / built environment
- Nurture user generated content and social interactions.
And that is just for starters. Once we understand you, your current place in the market, your aims, your objectives, your priorities, your worries, your concerns we can develop an eStrategy that helps to address these, works with your budgets and feeds upwards to inform your overall strategic plan.
The challenge though for many managers is to think and act beyond simply using digital tools to reduce the costs of existing business processes, for ad-hoc events or to market to a constrained audience.
It's not rocket science but the possibilities are extremely interesting and fruitful. If you are convinced that you use the internet and ICTs to their greatest capabilities, to deliver the objectives of your organisation then we salute you - we may even want to recruit you (but that's another matter)!
If you aren't sure then where is the harm in picking up the phone and talking to us. We are friendly and professional and are not here to sell you products or services that you don't need or can't afford. We want to help you make a difference, to help you achieve your aims and surpass them, to help you think out of the box and to ensure you maximise ICTs from strategic level down to the nitty-gritty implementation within achievable timescales and realistic and affordable budgets.
