Modern technology can be a huge benefit to businesses, helping to streamline processes, connect with customers like never before, provide huge amounts of data for analytic and strategic use, and improve the end-to-end service. But for some companies, the rapid advancement in technology means they’re faced with outdated processes, lower productivity, slower growth, and a struggle to compete against larger, better funded competitors, because they cannot afford or aren’t set up to handle the integration of modern technology. As a result, technology is phasing some businesses out.
There are pros and cons to making use of modern advancements in different parts of a business, and it’s not always effective to implement it on a company-wide basis, for example – businesses who operate ‘original’ practices or processes (sometimes dating as far back as hundreds of years), would not benefit from automating their production and losing their unique selling point, but they may benefit from offering AR or VR tours of the manufacturing plant, to educate and engage customers with a tour of how these classic processes work.
Technology is phasing some businesses out but the main areas of business where technology is having an impact include:
- Production techniques and processes
- Packing and delivery
- Logistics
- Information and communication resources
- Marketing
- eCommerce
Each time there is a shift in technology, it is inevitable that some products or processes become replaceable or obsolete.
You only have to look at the advancements in data storage and music to see a really clear example – over the years, we’ve gone from vinyl, cassette tapes and six-tracks, to CDs and then onto digital downloads – and this change didn’t just impact the manufactures of the albums, it had a huge impact on audio devices – nowadays, you don’t really see people wandering round with cassette players, CD players, or even devices such as iPods – the shift in technology has seen the phone business integrate music into functionality, and made most other forms of portable music player obsolete.