Technology- a differentiating factor

IT has evolved very rapidly in the last few years. Its contribution to the business markets has been unimaginably high. As a cost centre, Technology is providing services like email, business application access, data storage, support services etc. But technology gives much more to the business. With policies and concepts such as information technology infrastructure library, IT has realized the valuable services that help the organization accomplish its objectives. Quality has become an important factor while developing any process of a business. A decade ago, the .com business model was more than unreliable; today it has managed to produce more millionaires than any other business.

Technology has been a key factor in the growing trade and commerce within nations. Businesses have been in existence since the time civilizations prevailed. The trade between nations started with a simple barter system, exchanging goods with goods, long before the concept of currency came into being. Then came Charles Babbage with a machine no human had seen, which calculated and stored data electronically. This simple machine we call computer, revolutionized the whole industry drastically. From a small shop to stock markets, nothing can be devoid of dependence on this beautiful invention. All businesses depend on technology for all levels of research and development, point of sale systems, database management, accounting and tracking, production, deliverables and post sales service. It is impossible for any business to deal with technology one way or the other. Even chuck Norris wouldn’t dare to stop this kind of progressing ideologies of technology.

IT isn’t just evolving businesses; it is the central determinant of every successful business model. It has become a core driver of growth, and there is a significant amount of variance in the productivity of firms, depending on the usage of IT. As IT becomes ubiquitous and cheaper to use, opportunities for co-invention and producing organizational models that realize the value of technological inventions grow regularly. A large fraction of future wealth creation will depend on how the technology progresses. Transforming potential to generate profits sitting on the backbone of technology will become a priority in the future.

Investment in IT is critical to the consistent growth of an organization. Successful managers would be able to predict and invest in technologies that are the best suitable business model in the market. They will find the right parameters to feed inputs into the model giving the maximum optimized output. There are governance rules to follow a particular code of conduct that would ensure smooth flow of information. Creativity and innovation in the application of data models is another important factor in determining successful maintenance of data flows models. IT recognizes the data blue print of an organization which guides how the businesses should work.

The most subtle invariant of technology is the sustained increase in programmability, wherein increased complexity can be aggregated, codified and finally integrated into standard modules. This allows competencies and capabilities to be added to the conventional devices just by addition of digital instructions to the software. Modularity is fundamental in the effective implementation of IT in business. The addition and improvisation of modular layers can be it a standardized code to be used anywhere else. This capability allows programmers to cross the threshold that makes them feasible and suitable for purposes that were considered conventional.
The interpretation of the recent visibility of a modular and shared IT infrastructure as evidence of the shrinking importance of  IT to business professionals misses a more intrinsic point, that the large shared IT infrastructures create considerable opportunities and threats for firms, which should be specially addressed while framing the business strategies.

Apple, one of the most successful firms of the world revolutionized the way we listen to music by giving the world iTunes and an iPod to use it. The inception of iphone into the market made telephones obsolete and changed the way everyone communicated. Apple’s own OS macintosh redefined the perceptions of using a desktop. iPad changed the way tablets were being used and processes were implemented on the run. Steve Jobs redefined the practices of using technology. Innovative sophisticated gadgets aren’t a myth anymore. Thanks to Jobs who thought way ahead of his team and gave the world something no one could have imagined.

Google’s android OS too changed the mobile industry. In a market where symbian was a ruler, android changed the whole market demand. Its smoothness, speed and ease to use have won millions of hearts across the globe. Before android, temple was just a place to worship, cats were animals which couldn’t talk and birds could only fly.

Biotechnology offers new opportunities for a better food security, decreasing poverty and helping people in developed countries who couldn’t afford a onetime meal. Uganda, a developing country, facing problems of hunger and poverty has been benefited by these advancements.

Genetically modified organisms have influenced the world around agriculture and nutrition. GMO’s are organisms created by merging DNA of different species and developing a hybrid which has characteristics of both its parents. Developing nations use these to enhance their crop productivity, eliminate pesticide usage and provide nutritional value.

There are uncountable instances where technology has changed the lives of people around. Today working in a business without the use of technology is unimaginable. If all technologies were to vanish with the whoosh of a wand, humanity would go back to the Stone Age. Electricity, communication, food, stock markets and almost every other man made invention would stop working. ‘World without technology is a wholesale death’. Another aspect of technology is the growth of hardware power, storage capacity, bandwidth distribution and various customizations of various devices. Moore’s law is the mathematical proof of the disruptions that may happen in the future. As the influence of IT crosses a certain threshold, it would trigger a series of fluctuations in the markets and society. Parallelization and dependency of data on the internal processes are accelerating this trend. Thus, we see how immobile and handicap one may become in a world like today’s.

Technology is bound is evolve further in the coming years, but the question is has it reached its threshold where mankind can go no further except his own destruction, or is there another dimension which would still bring prosperity to the world. Time will tell.

Purpose of my MBA

Gazing at the presentations being held in my IT class, I pondered over the last one year I have spent in IIMK. Watching my past through the prism of retrospection, I see various spectrum of learning and experiences I have undergone to reach here. A year and a half before, I was just another aspirant preparing for CAT. Every weekend, I used to board the Delhi metro and go to my coaching centre in Connaught Place. Those weekend classes, mock tests, preparatory packages, learnings, valuable insights were somehow adding value bit by bit to my knowledge bank. Though like every other student, I wasn’t sure of my purpose of taking this much trouble. Like all other aspirants, I was inspired to do an MBA to catapult by career to new heights. After working for 2 years in an IT firm, gave me a perspective on how a firm works. Let’s face it, a better job, more money, a name in the industry and a good decent girl is what everyone aspires at the end of the day. Not sure about the rest, but most of them manage to get a latter

These are the kinds of dreams that our peers and role models instil in us. Cracking CAT was the most valuable achievements in my exhibition of accomplishments. I was excited about the new faces, professors, new friends, new place and most importantly new environment to adjust, after 2 years of an independent office life.

A year later, I look at my batch mates, who sometimes give me jitters by their sheer know how of the world around and the knowledge they posses. I realize that the reality of doing an MBA is much deeper that I had presumed it to be. Who would have known that I would have developed a completely new perception about my future and life?

Businesses around the world are evolving, changing at a pace which makes it both a necessity and unpredictable at the same time. Every brick used to build a business empire is based upon a foundation that is expected to makes it indifferent to the disruptions in the stock market. Each of them requires pillars to endure weights and pressures of the competing strategies. I would now discuss the 5P’s of business which I have learnt here and how it has evolved my perception of my own goals of doing an M.B.A.

Profits, is what the core driver of every organisation. Society considers money as the root of all evil, but what is the root of money. It is the infestation of energy, our hard work aggregated and quantized into paper and metal. Money is the material shape of the principle that businesses wish to deal with one another by trading value for value. Energy can’t be destroyed so cant money be. It just changes ownership in the perfect barter system, still holding the authority to value any product offering. Neither an ocean of cries nor the guns in a war can convert those pieces of paper into the meal one needs to survive. Try obtaining food by using your muscular energy and not by the seeds sowed by a common farmer and one will realize that man’s mind is the cause of all the production in the world. To trade goods/services through money the code every person earns by his own mind and effort. It is the most precious of all variables which deals with nothing except the mutual benefit of the traders.

People, are the front line and the face of all businesses in delivering a quality product to a customer. In light of this criticality, employee must have a genuine belief in the product/service that the business is offering to the market and hence align their goals to the mission/vision of the firm. But first understanding the psychology and competencies of the employee is necessary. It is only then that the employee acknowledges a firm’s effort and hence synchronizes their demands with the requirements of the firm.

Planning is an integral part of a business concern. But planning is not just a strategy to implement at any juncture of time. Planning requires a conscious, persistent and patient attitude to think upon. A spider carefully weaving a web amidst a lush green grasses of dense bushes, patiently waiting for an insect to fall for it; the venomous reptile camouflaged into the grains of desert fixing its eye on the lizard walking nearby; a black leopard coating itself into the dark forest, waiting hungrily for its prey near the pond; a chess player, carefully assessing his rivals move, waiting for him to make a mistake to pounce on his king are all natural strategists. Business strategies are much more complex and cumbersome in nature to think and to implement since gaining money is not always the priority. Innumerable factors including stakeholders, consumer behaviour, competitors, market segments come into play and they all need to be blended with proper weights to create a suitable business model.

Process defines the model used to deliver value to a customer. I’ll rather metaphorize it as a Harley Davidson. Levers are moved up to shift gears in sequel transmission to maintain the speed to power ratio. Accelerator raced up to eject the right amount of fuel and air into the engine where innumerable gears and ball bearings talk to each other in a harmonical symphony to throttle appropriate amount of torque to the rubber tubes. The result is a perfect machine sliding through thin air in full glory. A business is no different. Each and every step of the product/service build up procedure gives adequate brand and market share to a firm constantly driving it forward into the wilderness of business markets.

Performance is the alignment of data and its analysis to ensure a successful implementation of the processes. A business should continuously shift gears, improvising and attaining its maximum potential. As the nature evolves, giving each of its life forms a gene to evolve its future generations, to survive among the fittest alive, so does the businesses where every employee and workflow must learn, interpret and evolve to the next stage of its life cycle.

I come back to my hostel room back from my class, looking at the newspaper lying in front of me which shouts out loud “Rupee falling to an all time low”. Economies around the world, not only in India go down, but the key is the develop strategies to rise it up again. To sustain the motor of the world, to keep it feuling with our ideologies, however small contribution that may be.

I realize today that it is for this very purpose that I want to work for, to make a difference. To be one of the many ripples in the fluid of ideologies so as to show the world what is it and what it should have been. To offer a perception, a new dimension, to the pool of life forces. Every form of energy deserves a better life than what it is today. It is the moral responsibility of not only me but everyone to contribute their bits to the spirit of the cycle of life.