The global economy is changing rapidly these days along with technological advancement. Innovations bring both opportunities and challenges for business. E-mail, voice over IP, smartphones and social networks have already revolutionized means of business communication. The progress does not seem to stop, and new technologies will be invented and implemented. Innovations are a must for any competitive business. Although there are so many convenient and promising ways to improve the communication, each single company has to think twice before implementing them and do not be tempted by innovations for the sake of innovations.
Communications Issues
The main concern a developing company has to deal with in terms of integrated business communications is that modern internet technologies offer so many of them and while each way provides its own benefits, their usage is to be carefully considered and discussed inside the company with employees who are going to use them. Still, one should not be afraid of innovations for not missing opportunities. Desk phones and traditional mail are sometimes considered as obsolete things, and some even predict abandonment of the former, as they are replaced with smartphones and VoIP technologies.
However, the implementation of the new is not always a reason to discard the old, as the traditional ways of communication still have their audience; they are well developed and studied (Revesencio, 2015). After all, they are familiar for the most employees and clients older than 30. Therefore, the major issue of modern business communication one may expect to face is the choice of the specific hardware and software and integrating them into a single system. The company should study its clients, be responsive to their feedback as well as discussing the matter with its employees, teaching them how to communicate properly by certain means.
Complexity of Communication
As was stated previously, there are many technologies, both reducing and increasing the complexity of communication. The matter of ease of communication seems to be obvious: e-mail is instant, while traditional mail is not, social networks provide many opportunities for targeted marketing, Internet, in general, makes everything way faster. The problem with all these novelties is that they generate immense amounts of data, which has to be analyzed and stored. The former is not an issue nowadays, as the storage space is cheap and cloud technologies are a major trend. The analysis, on the other hand, may stress companies’ employees a lot.
It requires a lot of time and effort, and may result in increasing staff. Embracing the principles of the real-time enterprise may result in several advantages, though they require the companies’ networks to be designed to support the RTE. Another and, probably, the most significant issue is security. The hacker attack on major corporations proved how vulnerable any network is. The threats are constantly evolving, forcing business to react properly. The growth of mobile integration is only exacerbating the problem.
The ubiquity of the internet technologies also expands the need in increased bandwidth and connection speed. The cloud storages and services, and videoconferencing are forcing business to invest more in the infrastructure (Puskar, 2012).
Role of Technology in Communication
With all the problems addressed, that are threatening to grow even more in the future, the importance of the technological advancement is undeniable, and its role will increase as well. There is growing a generation used to modern technologies since early childhood, therefore they would not need to adapt. The internet is so widely spread that it is literally impossible to imagine life without it.
Meanwhile, there is a trend growth in the number of people, who are actually tired of the Web. They purposely reduce their presence in social networks and do not use many services, for they are exhausted with the vast amount of information. The employees have little choice; they have to use the technologies required by their company, while the existence of such clients leaves a space for traditional ways of communication and advertising.
Information Gap
Along with the existence of those who a tired of technology, there are also those, who have never used to it or even never truly experienced it. First of all, these are the elderly people. Their online presence is quite static, though most likely, going to grow by obvious means (Ageing and the use of the internet, 2012). They are more likely to use the traditional ways of communication, and companies should consider that. There are also developing countries, where the Internet is not that common. While there are several large scale projects to deliver free wireless internet all over the world, they are far from realization (Eagle, 2015). Until then, international companies should consider the availability and speed of the internet in the country they are going to work.
Personal Philosophy
I think that we are coming to a time when modern technologies will cease to be that modern. Their existence will be considered as a fact; their integration will be as easy for a company as receiving mail always was. Therefore, there will be a minimum of means of communication a company should use, while the others will be accepted on its own risk.
References
Ageing and the use of the internet. (2012). Web.
Eagle, N. (2015). How To Make The Internet Free In Developing Countries. Web.
Puskar, R. (2012). Connections: Looking to the future of business communications. Web.
Revesencio, J. (2015). Top 10 Business Communication Trends in 2015. Web.