IMPACT OF TECHNOLOGY ON BUSINESS
[ISSUES, OPPORTUNITIES AND CHALLENGES]
Abstract:
Technology, the word itself carries big meaning. No one can give exact answer of the question, “From when Technology enters in our society? Or from when we started using the concept of Technology?” By taking broad meaning of Business, we all will agree that we all are businessmen and we do that since we come in existence. During this paper, we are trying to explore the impact of Technology on our Business and what kind of issues, opportunities and challenges Technology creates for us. First we will have a look at traditional business, i.e. how business was done at the start of the civilization. Then we will check whether impact of technology existed or not. Then onwards we will check actual impact of today’s technology on current business mode with its issues, opportunities and challenges.
1. Introduction
During the start of the human civilization, we deal in different kind of business. Firstly we do business in “GIVE & TAKE” manner i.e. Barter System. Then onwards some common transaction material comes in the picture. Hence step by step as we grow and our social values changes, we modify our type and style of doing business. But the main thing is that the business was done for just satisfying each others need. There was no concept of profit and capitalization. One man give whatever he has in access and take some part of commodities of other. Such Barter System continued for a long time. As the groups and society came into existence, human started to use some common material to carry out transaction. From then onwards “the concept of buying and selling” came into existence. This common transaction items were animals, gold, etc. and this lead to the profit and loss in the business. After the concept of MONEY came into existence and it totally changed the style of doing business.
2. Impact of Technology was existing.
First of all, what is Technology? What does Technology mean? How does it affect business?
“Technology is systematic knowledge and action, usually of industrial processes but applicable to any recurrent activity. Technology is closely related to science and to engineering. Science deals with humans' understanding of the real world about them—the inherent properties of space, matter, energy, and their interactions. Engineering is the application of objective knowledge to the creation of plans, designs, and means for achieving desired objectives. Technology deals with the tools and techniques for carrying out the plans.”
Technology is a word with origins in the Greek word technologia, techne "craft" and logia "saying." It is a broad term dealing with the use and knowledge of humanity's tools and crafts. Technology means applying a systematic technique, method or approach to solve a problem.
The history of technology is at least as old as humanity. The history of technology follows a progression from simple tools and simple (mostly human) energy sources to complex high-technology tools and energy sources.
The earliest technologies converted readily occurring natural resources (such as rock, wood and other vegetation, bone and other animal byproducts) into simple tools. Processes such as carving, chipping, scraping, weaving, knotting, rolling (the wheel), and sun-baking are simple means for the conversion of raw materials into usable products. Anthropologists have uncovered many early human habitations and tools made from natural resources. Birds and other animals often build elaborate nests and some simple tools out of various materials. We normally don't consider them to be performing a technological feat, primarily because such behavior is largely instinctive. There is some evidence of occasional cultural transference, especially among the other, nonhuman primates. Nevertheless, there is now considerable evidence of such simple technology among animals other than humans.
The use, and then mastery, of fire (circa 1,000,000 - 500,000 BC) was a turning point in the technological evolution of humankind, affording a simple energy source with many profound uses. Perhaps the first use of fire beyond providing heat was the preparation of food. This enabled a significant increase in the vegetable and animal sources of food, while greatly reducing perish ability.
The use of fire extended the capability for the treatment of natural resources and allowed the use of natural resources that require heat to be useful. Wood and charcoal were among the first known materials used as a fuel. Wood, clay, and rock (such as limestone), were among the earliest materials shaped or treated by fire, for making artifacts such as weapons, pottery, bricks, and cement. Continuing improvements led to the furnace and bellows and provided the ability to smelt and forge native metals (naturally occurring in relatively pure form). Gold, copper, silver, and lead, were such early metals. The advantages of copper tools over stone, bone, and wooden tools were quickly apparent to early humans, and native copper was probably used from near the beginning of Neolithic times (about 8000 BCE). Native copper does not naturally occur in large amounts, but copper ores are quite common and some of them produce metal easily when burned in wood or charcoal fires. Eventually, the working of metals led to the discovery of alloys such as bronze and brass (about 4000 BCE). The first uses of iron alloys such as steel dates to around 1400 BCE.
Meanwhile, humans were learning to harness other forms of energy. The earliest known use of wind power is the sailboat. The earliest record of a ship under sail is shown on an Egyptian pot dating back to 3200 BCE. From prehistoric times, Egyptians probably used "the power of the Nile" annual floods to irrigate their lands, gradually learning to regulate much of it through purposely built irrigation channels and 'catch' basins. Similarly, the early peoples of Mesopotamia, the Sumerians, learned to use the Tigris and Euphrates rivers for much the same purposes. But more extensive use of wind and water (and even human) power required another invention.
It is still a mystery as to who invented the wheel and when and why it was invented. According to some archaeologists, it was probably originally invented about 8000 B.C. The wheel was almost certainly independently invented in Mesopotamia -— present-day Iraq. Estimates on when this may have occurred range from 5500 to 3000 B.C., with most guesses closer to a 4000 B.C. date. The oldest artifacts with drawings that depict wheeled carts date from about 3000 B.C., though for all anyone knows, the wheel may have been in use for millennia before these drawings were made. But there is also evidence from the same period of time that wheels were used for the production of pottery. (Note that the original potter's wheel was probably not a wheel -— but rather an irregularly shaped slab of flat wood with a small hollowed or pierced area near the center and mounted on a peg driven into the earth. It would have been rotated by repeated tugs by the potter or his assistant.) More recently, the oldest-known wooden wheel in the world was found in the Ljubljana marshes of Slovenia.
The invention of the wheel revolutionized activities as disparate as transportation, war, and the production of pottery (for which it may have been first used). It didn't take long to discover that wheeled wagons could be used to carry heavy loads and fast (rotary) potters' wheels enabled early mass production of pottery. But it was the use of the wheel as a transformer of energy (through water wheels and windmills and even treadmills) that revolutionized the application of nonhuman power sources.
After all these, we all agree with the statement,
The history of technology is at least as old as humanity
3. Impact of Technology on Business
The activity of providing goods and services involving financial and commercial and industrial aspects is a Business.
As in past, Technology has its own impact on style and type of business we do. We need technology, and yet every new technology places new demands upon us and creates new forms of stress. We can't live with it, but we can't live without it. There is no turning back to some pre-technological Eden. Aristotle rightly described man as an animal that lives by technology. The human race lives by art and reasoning. Other animals come as complete packages. Their sense powers and instinctive programming are infallible within the limits of their particular ecological niche. Their organs (their hardware) and their instincts (software) are tailored to specific activities. As Aristotle said, they sleep with their shoes on.
The other animals have each only way method of defense and cannot exchange it for another. Whereas the human is physically weaker, by the use of his hands he can create any tool that any other animal has. Our weakness is our strength, as the lack of any specialized defensive organs makes us free to be versatile. Likewise, we are poorly equipped with instincts. Our entire behavioral repertoire is made up of what Aristotle would call "art" or "techne".
Issues, Opportunities and Challenges
Every technology is an extension of our own natural powers, and can be reduced back to some natural need. This is to say that technology can be understood in terms of final cause, or purpose, and that purpose is a purpose of the living human being. Every instrument or tool has objective effects, in terms of results both intended and not intended, the work done. The objective effects of technology are easy to study by conventional methods. Every invention comes from the desire to enhance an existing natural function, to accelerate it. This implies that the objective effects of technology can be studied in a quantitative manner. The objective benefits of one car over another can be measured by speed and fuel consumption. The deaths that result from the use of cars, compared with the time saved by the use of cars, and the pollution produced by various types of fuel are easily tabulated.
Hence one or another way technology has major impact on business. And since the last 50 yrs with the advent of the information technology the world has turned around. With the establishment of the Internet business has got globalize Businesses are now able to approach overseas market. They are no more confined to their areas of their establishment. Business today is inextricably intertwined with technology, from the smallest home office, to a multinational corporation with multiple monolithic legacy application. It is impossible to be in business today without confronting the issues of technology. The way we do business today is different than 30 years ago. Technology has evolved around the areas of telecommunication, travel, stock market, shipping even around our daily lives.
Marketing, Sales, Production, Quality and every other face of business got affected by technology. E-commerce is a system by which people can buy, sell and deal with customer. Concepts like online shopping and e-marketing has changed method of doing business. Now there is no personal touch with customer required. Also several new techniques have been developed to improve sale of product. Better transportation, proper information, open market of world with globalization and many other things allow the business man to sale their product and gain profit. There is now so much technological development of machineries and production tools. By use of these new machines, production cost and time comes down and that is without loss of quality of product, in fact the quality of product is improved.
As the new technological concept emerges, the style and method of doing business is also changes. The business which was once fully concentrated on profit, is now more quality centered, consumer oriented. It is no more product base now. Only the business who works according to the need of the consumer or who creates artificial need of their product for consumer can survive now a day. Also technology changed the whole structure of the business. It has now become more specific and specialized, more product quality and consumer satisfaction based. Departmentalization and HRM make business more live and progressive. A general employee is now part of business in fact he is the most valuable asset of the business.
These new technologies brought many opportunities for business. The production time and cost decreased, quality of product increased, transportation time decrease, style and method of sales and marketing changed, all these factors creates new opportunities for business. Media, ad world, survey, and many other are new requirements of business. HRM, BPO, KPO and consultancy are emerging concept of corporate world.
Concept of public sector and globalization improves chances to survive for small business. Even a common man can become part of a large business. On the other side no one need to have big capital to start a business. Hence a common man have opportunity to start a business and grow it world wide. Also geographical barriers are no more there. After concept of globalization, we can do business in every corner of the world.
But simultaneously Technology has its adverse effects. Technology is the artificial enhancement of human power. It should make us stronger and smarter, however our demented community is discovering that it now has the opposite effect. Nuclear power has terrified and paralyzed its creators, while the improved cleverness and flexibility of our machines have caused social chaos and economic stagnation.
"When the life of people is unmoral, and their relations are not based on love, but on egoism, then all technical improvements, the increase of man's power over nature, steam, electricity, the telegraph, every machine, gunpowder, and dynamite, produce the impression of dangerous toys placed in the hands of children."
The Internet is threatening newspapers, the music industry, television broadcasting and even the movie industry. Instant up to date news on many and varied subjects is available, along with pictures, at the touch of a keyboard, via the Internet; a fact which directly threatens newspapers, if not the whole printing industry. Similarly music can be copied onto computer files and played without the need for records or compact discs, undermining the CD creation and publication industries; television programs and commercial films can be copied and viewed in the same way, on home computers or home theatres, making television channels and movie theatres unnecessary. Industries now share the same uncertainty as workers as they do not know how long they will be required. Hence keep the employee satisfied and honest for business is one of the challenge for today’s business.
Technology also brings such challenges. As the opportunity of business increases, simultaneously complication of work and competition in market also increases. Globalization of market broke the back bone of the small scale industries. It is hard for business to survive without making changes in it and become flexible towards market. Hence the survival is another challenge for business.
Trust of consumer is the basic thing for every business and that is what business loses day by day. There are so many options and choices, the consumer have now a day. Hence it is hard for business to not allow people to leave them. For that they have to keep on increasing quality of product, decrease the cost and also improve the service. Because of unfaithful environment of the market, people are not interested or in fact feel fear to invest their money into business. Hence to regain the faith of consumer and investor is the most important challenge for business.
Summary
Hence, Technology come with us and will remain till we are. It has major part play in our life and our business. It has both good and bad impact on our business. It provides lots of good opportunities for business to grow. But simultaneously, it also creates lots many challenges for us.
Hence at the end of the discussion,
Only the user, who uses the instrument or tool, knows the exact use of it.
