Introduction
The technology transformation, which began to take shape in 1980 with the development of the internet and innovation of mobile devices, has transformed the business environment significantly. Schatzberg (2018) defines technology as the employment of techniques, skills, procedures, and strategies in the production of commodities, as well as the achievement of set goals. These technological advancements have resulted in a competitive business landscape that is crowned by uncertainty, volatility, and turbulence (ŞAHİN and Topal, 2018, p. 1274). This results in the dynamism of the business environment and creates a need to manage the unpredictability resulting from these technology innovations employed in the business environment.
It is important to first understand what technology management means in this context. Turulja and Bajgoric (2018) define technology management as the art of supervising workers across the technological continuum as well as managing the wide range of complicated technological breakthroughs. In today’s business world, the digital era has had a major impact on the business environment. Technology advancements have been made in every sector of business and managers have a task to comprehend the various technological innovations and how they affect business operations. In doing that, managers need to maximize the positive impacts of technology in business and find ways to mitigate the negative impacts of such technological innovations. This ensures that the ramifications of employing such technologies do not cause harm to the business.
This paper aims at giving an insight into the major technology advancements witnessed in the business environment, and further discusses the positive and negative impacts of these technology innovations on the business environment. In a review of related literature, this paper outlines appropriate strategies that businesses need to employ in the management of technology innovations, to achieve maximum benefits from technology advancements.
Major Technology Advancements in Business Today
The business environment has seen numerous significant advancements in technology innovations, most of which have been made possible by the pervasive use of broadband internet access. Dawood, Al-Turjman, and Nawaz (2020, p. 5) point out that the invention of cloud technology, which uses internet-based storage, has revolutionized business operations. He reviews that, businesses in the past used to manage data and run programs with the help of downloaded software which was executed on physical computers or servers located in their facilities. With cloud computing, businesses can perform the same functions over the internet without the need for a physical server room or storage facility.
Videoconferencing software has significantly developed in the recent past. This is especially in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic that has resulted in travel bans and gatherings restrictions. Videoconferencing software has given businesses a convenient virtual method of holding meetings amongst the stakeholders (Archibald et al., 2019). In a world where businesses aim at cutting costs and increasing revenues, videoconferencing tools have provided a handy way to achieve that by cutting travel expenses and costs associated with physical organizations of conferences (Correia, Liu, and Xu, 2020, p. 435). Examples of videoconferencing software that have gained momentum in the recent past include Zoom, WebEx, Google Meet, and Microsoft Teams.
The rapid growth of mobile applications has made it possible to have personalized customer support which contains the convenience of being self-serviced. Dobrica and Pietraru (2017, p. 524) argue that through the development of mobile applications that provide customer support, customers can get their inquiries and concerns addressed swiftly. These mobile applications model the physical business stores and offer the convenience of access to business services without having to physically visit the business stores. Additionally, instead of having a physical customer care agent, businesses can virtually provide these services and also receive customer feedback conveniently.
Artificial intelligence (AI) is transforming the world in the corporate and consumer industries, and it has become a part of everyday life. This application of technology has altered corporate operations in practically every area, and it has become an essential strategy for businesses seeking to preserve a competitive advantage. Through AI, businesses have created smart machines that can perform tasks better than humans would (Tarafdar, Beath, and Ross, 2019, p.40). Rana et al. (2021, p. 6) however argue that businesses negatively use the benefits of AI to substitute humans. The idea that the technology does not make errors and is not prone to fatigue as opposed to humans, is what has furthered its adoption in the business world.
Big data is a technology innovation that deals with methodically collecting, analyzing, and presenting facts based on routinely collected data that is too complex for traditional data-processing applications. Big data technology in a business environment collects customer information online, regarding their purchasing patterns and helps businesses to understand the customers and make predictions (Zdravevski et al., 2020). The technology of Big Data also helps the management to analyse lump sum amounts of data and aid in informed decision-making.
Impacts of Technology Innovations in a Business Environment
Digitalization is essential for enhancing the efficiency of a business. Incorporating innovative technology in business operations can help businesses maximize value in delivery to customers and increase revenue while reducing costs (Rachinger et al., 2019). These costs are reduced through saving time in service delivery, personalized marketing, efficient inventory management, and lower manufacturing costs. Aksoy (2017, p. 135) highlights that innovations help in fostering team collaborations as team members can interact with each other with the common aim of attaining or exceeding growth targets. Additionally, through technology innovations, business operations are revolutionized as they adopt more simplified processes that bridge existing gaps through the integration of all organizational departments. Wikhamn (2019, p. 108) insists that technology innovations efficiently offer secure and reliable access to virtual sharing of computing resources. The adaptability, security, and cost-effective features that accompany these inventions offer quick access to effective business management software with no restrictions of geographical location or time (Gërguri‐Rashiti et al., 2017, p. 100). This has enabled attain a revolutionized business operation and helped organizations offer services to customers, anytime and anywhere.
Why Technology Needs to be Managed
Management of technology innovations to achieve a strategic advantage is a challenging and often frustrating task. The main difficulty is how to harmonize the unpredictability of technology innovations with the desire to put technological programs into a well-organized business management system (Schwertner, 2017, p. 390). To better understand the process of managing technology, it is necessary to define what “technology management” actually comprises. Technology management covers research, product/process innovation, as well as production engineering (Samimi, 2020, p. 132). He further explains that research broadens the firm’s knowledge of science and engineering. Development on its part applies this information to a specific aspect of the company’s operations. Engineering on the other hand transforms technology innovations into things that customers find useful or attractive.
Businesses must maintain a culture of continuous improvement as a way to gain a lasting competitive edge in today’s business environment, which is defined by a high level of fierce competition. Ikon (2018, p. 3) argues that the need to gain a competitive advantage in business necessitates Business Process re-engineering (BPR), which is aided by technological advancements. IT advancements have the benefit of resulting in cost-cutting initiatives. Not all IT advancements are beneficial since their consequences can be dangerous at times. Through automation as one of the strategies by which technology advances save expenses, the majority of a company’s human resources are rendered obsolete. As a result, there is a higher rate of unemployment. Additionally, the management may become overly reliant on computer systems and may be unable to function without them. The organization may then become rigid and unable to adapt well to the rapidly changing business environment as a result. This calls for a need to effectively manage the use of technology in an organizational setting.
Strategies for Technology Innovation Management
Managers need to sustain the strategic alignment process to integrate technology advancements. In this regard, alignment involves the following major strategies: IT strategy, business strategy, organizational challenges, and information systems challenges. The technique of picking the optimal software and hardware solutions is known as Information Technology (IT) strategy. The process of assuring the cost-effectiveness of implementing an IT plan, on the other hand, is known as a business strategy. Conversely, organizational challenges related to keeping the personnel skill sets up to date, and maintenance of an effective software solution contributes to information systems challenges. Management must ensure that these four areas are linked while deploying IT advances. Failure to maintain these alignments could result in loss of the company’s strategic focus and the investments in technology innovations would be severely compromised.
Implementing technology innovations involves a change management process. The change management process thus becomes important in this regard. To keep abreast with the rapidly changing technology solutions, organisations must sustain a continuous change management process. As a result, organisational structures must be designed to adapt to such changes. This leaves the managers with the task of implementing change management procedures and advocating for their adoption to ensure that the organization is flexible enough to adopt any forthcoming changes.
Building successful business competencies necessitate management investment in training and development of employees’ skill sets. The challenge with formal training is that all of the issues that may arise in the real world cannot be predicted. For this reason, managers should encourage informal learning. This implies that managers need to decide how much access to crucial information, different sections of the organizations should have. This is because technological advancements can compromise the confidentiality of organizational information.
In focusing on the numerous advantages to be gained from technological advancements, managers may lose sight of the need of developing enough human resources. Human capital is where a company’s long-term competitive edge comes from, and the negative effects of implementing technology advancements can lead to downsizing (Rana et al., 2021, p. 6). This translates to a loss of the focus to develop appropriate human capital. If the management grows preoccupied with deploying increasingly sophisticated IT technologies, congruence with strategic objectives may suffer, and the company may lose rather than gain competitiveness. This emphasises the need for managers to pay keen attention to developing adequate human capital.
Conclusion
The transformation of technology in the digital era has transformed the business environment significantly. It has resulted in a competitive business landscape that is crowned by uncertainty, volatility, and turbulence hence the need to manage these technology innovations. This thus creates dynamism of the business environment, which needs to be managed as the unpredictability caused by this dynamism could be a potential threat or opportunity for a business and its environment.
For a manager to monitor technology innovations experienced in a set environment, there is a need to examine which type of technologies are most likely to be encountered in the business field and how their impact the business. The paper analyzed the most common advancements that are likely to be encountered in a set business environment. These technology innovations include but are not limited to, Artificial Intelligence (AI), the use of Big data in making informed decisions, the invention of mobile applications, the use of cloud computing and storage, and videoconferencing software used in holding virtual meetings.
The notion that technology is a double-edged sword in that it can either cut or heal, is the major reason why managers need to pay attention to managing technology innovations. The main difficulty in managing technology in business, however, is figuring out how the unpredictability of technology innovations can be harmonized with the desire to put technological programs into a well-organized business management system. In this regard, managers need to align technology innovations with the overall organization strategy and goals. In a nutshell, the managers need to strategize on how to maximize the advantages offered by the solutions and mitigate vies resulting from the adoption of technology in business.
To handle this challenge of technology management, managers need to create plans on what strategies are most appropriate in their business context. In this regard, they need to sustain the strategic alignment process of integrating technology advancements. The alignment involves the following major strategies: information technology strategy, business strategy, organizational challenges, and information systems challenges. Conversely, managers are likely to achieve optimum success in technology innovations management if they understand how to integrate the four strategies. This calls for managers to pay keen attention to developing adequate human capital, investment in training and development of employees’ skill set, and maintenance of a continuous change initiative.
In summary, the dynamic nature of technology that causes it to keep changing makes it harder to attain a sustainable competitive advantage for the long run of a business. This means that one solution cannot be implemented and is expected to serve the business in the long run. Instead, businesses have to stay abreast with the latest technology and keep changing their strategies to match the current technological advancements. Failure to keep up with the latest technology could lead the organization to failure as they could be termed obsolete and that is why managers need to utilize their skills in the management of technology innovations.
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