2006 TechNO Expo

Good times are here again in the information technology (IT) business, on both the supply and demand sides. Company owners and managers have many opportunities to put technology to work and eliminate inefficiencies. And while there are no huge, change-the-world technologies on the horizon, things have never been better.

Granted, businesspeople have had to adjust their technology expectations from the grand promises of a few years ago. The opportunities today are more incremental; there are plenty of them—they’re just smaller. There has never been a better time to put IT to work for your organization instead of vice versa.

PCs, wireless communications, and Internet technologies are everywhere now, and they keep getting better and easier to acquire and use. It’s a mature industry, and IT practitioners are no longer inscrutable gurus with exclusive knowledge of technology.

We now have an always-on, connected world with:

Web-based applications and information access available   anywhere there’s an Internet connection. All content and communications are available in digital format (e.g. movies, telephone service).

A movement to utility-like IT. Think of the way you get electricity. You don’t hire someone to operate a generator to power your building; you just buy the electricity. In a few years, servers, storage, and other routine business technology will be available in a similar way; you’ll simply ‘plug-in’ and use the technology and not have to worry about running it. Sales force.com, a customer-relationship management software that is available on line has led the charge in this area.

Democratic access and participation. For instance, blogging makes anyone, including your customers and employees, a publisher. Anyone can broadcast their opinions about businesses, products, and more to a huge potential audience.

Users control how and when they receive information from innumerable sources. If a competitor in California is offering a better price than you, it’s easier for your customers to find that out.

Competently managing technology has never been more important because businesses spend a lot of money on it, we are all dependent on it, it comes with significant security challenges, and, despite the way it’s completely changed our work lives, it holds the promise of even greater innovations to come.

IT Overload

Gartner, an IT research firm based in Connecticut, and other industry analysts say that 70 percent of IT budgets are spent on maintenance of existing IT investments. And many of these are systems that were purchased in the throes of some over-hyped technology binge (Y2K scare, dotcom era, wireless heyday), not necessarily with the company’s business objectives in mind.