Don't Let Your Business be a Tech Wreck

Technology is important for modern businesses, and no-one in their right mind would doubt it. But business owners are allowing several problems to slip through the net when it comes to the implementation of new business technologies. Let’s take a look at some of the most subtle but concerning issues in this field.

Overestimating technology

Is the overestimation of the power of technology the number one problem when it comes to tech in the business world? It’s difficult to quantify and rank such things, but it’s certainly the biggest problem that most people simply don’t even think about. At the end of the day, most of us probably rely a little too much on technology. We expect it to rarely fail, to answer all our questions, to deliver whatever it is we need it to. This happens despite the fact that we’ve all seen our tech fail to do these things! In the business world, this overreliance can have severe consequences.

Digitization problems

You can digitize pretty much everything these days, and there’s no question that digitization has been one of the biggest corporate disruptions we’ve seen in the past couple of generations - perhaps even the biggest. Your aim shouldn’t be to digitize everything, however. When you look at all the potential deployments of new technology, it becomes clear that it would strain the wallet of even some of the wealthiest companies in the world. Be careful when it comes digitization; if it makes things simpler for the customer, then it’s probably the right choice. But do consider just how much easier it is for the customer. Does it simplify and empower their experience, or does it only shave a couple of seconds off of the time it takes to complete a task?

The dangers of technology

One of the leading problems of turning your business into some tech and data haven is that it’s nowhere as easy to protect as you might think. It turns so many of your important business assets into something very abstract. A decade or so ago, protecting the assets in your office involved CCTV, tighter locks on the door, and even a security guard. These days, you’re best off working with someone is a master in cyber security in order to protect assets that are now less tangible than ever without losing any of their importance. The loss of data or the disruption of your tech processes can cause such big problems for your business in both a legal and a functional sense.

Big data or smart data?

Big data has become something of a buzzword in the business world. It’s automatically assumed to be a great thing to have all the data you can possibly get your hands on. Sure, more data is good, but you still need to be smart about all the data. The problem with the big data phenomenon is that business owners are beginning to rely even more heavily on generalizations that are a byproduct of collecting big data and using various mathematical and statistical methods to create graphs and predictions. (This is what some would call actuarial science in business.) Don’t let big data replace human intuition and case-by-case judgment.