The Alignment of Emerging Technologies with Business Needs - Literature review Example

THE ALIGNMENT OF EMERGING TECHNOLOGIES WITH BUSINESS NEEDS Insert Name Course Institution Instructor Date of Submission Abstract The incorporation of emerging technologies in normal business operations has transformed the business environment by increasing competitiveness among the industrial players. Emerging technologies require adequate planning prior to their adoption by the organization in order to ensure their alignment with the business objectives. This planning process facilitates the allocation of the available resources towards the achievement of the pre-identified objectives. Coordination among the various sub-systems of the organization seeks to ensure that the organization functions as a unit and responds to the changes within the business environment. Matching the adopted technologies with the needs of the business enhances organizational productivity and satisfaction among employees and customers. Introduction The modern business setting exhibits emerging technologies aimed at developing, improving and establishing business operations. Unlike the traditional business environments, technologies in the modern environment are unique to specific businesses and thus they have the ability to satisfy the business needs. Business needs encompass optimum staffing, efficient resource allocation, growth and expansion among other elements that facilitate the business life cycle. At every stage of the business life cycle, the organization has varying business needs that when satisfied enable the organization move to the next stage or rejuvenate its operations. It is therefore prudent for the organization’s management to match its business needs with the adopted technologies to ensure cohesiveness in the business operations. This essay aims at critically examining the importance, impact and limitations of matching business needs with emerging technologies. Business organizations exist primarily to achieve a pre-determined objective through efficient allocation of available resources towards this objective(s). Traditionally, operations within the business environment required minimum amounts of information to facilitate decision making. As a result, most of these decisions were inaccurate and in turn the organization suffered severe losses. However, in the modern environment, technological advancement has made it possible for organizations to store information virtually, sieve and retrieve the needed information with much ease (Great Britain 2002, p9). Various organizations have different information needs depending on the nature of their business operations. The management should therefore strive to match the needs of the organization with relevant technologies to avoid resource wastage. On the other hand, technological advancements are occurring at a fast rate with most technologies becoming obsolete by the day. According to Grigoriu, some technologies especially IT systems are inflexible and therefore are rigid in responding to changes within the business environment (2009, Para. 1). With this in mind, technologies available within the organization should be able to infiltrate the operational, tactical and strategy levels of management. However, these management levels display varying information needs due to the decisions to be made at each level. It is therefore impossible for a single technology to be able to satisfy the needs of the entire organization or its various entities. Growthwave (2006) suggests that technological experts should be recruited within the organization and deployed to the various organizational levels in order to coordinate and match the organization’s needs at all levels with their technological demands. This suggestion is based on the notion that an organization is a system that comprises of several sub-systems that are interdependent. Grigoriu however notes that technological systems require enhanced maintenance activities and the organization should be prepared to shoulder the relevant costs (2009, Para 2). Due to the varying business needs within the business environment and internally, no single technology can adequately satisfy these needs. This means that various technologies have to be integrated and operate effectively without overlapping their independent functions. Most technologies are designed to operate effectively on their own with little room for integration. Owing to this limitation, business organizations have resulted into necessary automation of their internal process whilst maintaining their manual operations. Business alignment refers to the order of internal operations that technologies should be able to fit into. These internal operations are the established processes directed towards achieving the departmental objectives and eventually the organizational objectives. Basic technologies such as computers are able to fully integrate into the organization’s operations. Other sophisticated technologies such as servers should match the organization’s need for processed information. Johnson (2009, Para 1) notes that mismatching of the business objectives and the impact of technologies on the objectives. Prior to the inclusion of technological tools within the organization, it is important to take into consideration the overall objectives of the organization. Having identified these objectives, the management should link the technologies with the sub-objectives of the multiple organizational levels. This will enable the management decide on the technology that is most appropriate to the organization’s operations. (Great Britain 2002, p7) suggests that the management should further consider the technologies response to the business environment in order to determine the sustainability of the organization’s internal processes. The dynamic business environment presents the organization with a number of challenges and opportunities that the organization can exploit to their advantage. Today’s business oriented technologies have taken into consideration the changing business environment and thus they are suited for this environment. However, due to the evolving nature, the application of technologies within the organizations is a very costly move and thus requires timely planning. Due to the huge costs involved, the management might be quite adamant towards acquiring the most recent technologies and thus peg their operations to the legacy systems. Most of these systems were acquired in a different business environment in the past. With this mismatch, business organizations eventually fail through lowered productivity and reduced turnover (Guzman 2003). Varied emerging technologies make it possible for the organization to adopt these applications either at a large or small scale depending on their financial muscle. With a small scale application of the emerging technologies, the organization is able to adopt these technologies bit by bit until the technologies are fully adopted within the entire organization. Although the small scale application takes a long period of time, it enables business organizations to evaluate and amend their initial application plans depending on the business environment and available resources (Kyobe 2008, p12). Guzman (2003, Para. 8) notes that technologies play a very important role within organizations although they can become a nuisance when poorly adopted or maintained. Planning is very crucial within the organization for it to realise the benefits of the emerging technologies. The core purpose of planning is to fit the technology into the organization’s operations and not vice versa. To achieve alignment within the organization, it is prudent for the organization to understand the technology and seek an expert’s input on the technology (Glen 2007). This will enable the management to understand the core purpose of the technology, its future applicability and relevance to the organization’s operations. Objectivity in the application of emerging technologies within the organization facilitates the evaluation of the technology and its suitability within the organization. In an organization, emerging technologies can be employed towards meeting the organization’s most critical needs that can be outlined through prioritization. After prioritizing, the management should undertake a feasibility study through a cost-benefit analysis for each of the business needs. Kyobe (2008, p5) states that the management seeks to establish whether the organization’s productivity increases or diminishes with the introduction of technologies in the organization. Further from analysing the technology’s approach towards meeting the business needs, the organization should analyse its impact on customer satisfaction and employee productivity among other business areas. Kaplan & Norton (2006, p247) suggests that the management can have a look at other organizations that have already adopted the proposed technology and how it has addressed its problems. However, this does not mean that the organization should imitate other organizations as they have distinct resources and structures to support the technology. Business needs vary depending at the organization’s stage in the business life cycle and various resources are required to meet these needs. The application of technologies within organizations should be matched with the organizational objectives in order to enhance harmony in the internal processes. In the alignment process, planning plays a great role as it enables the organization to fit the emerging technology to the organization. After the adoption of the technology, the management should constantly evaluate it to ensure that it matches with the present objectives of the organization. Application of the wrong technology or at the wrong level, results into inefficiencies in the organization’s internal processes. References Day, GS, Schoemaker, PJH & Gunther, RE 2004, Wharton on Managing Emerging Techno., California: John Wiley & Sons. Glen, P 2007, Aligning Techno. Sol. With Bus. Needs, Accessed on Sept. 20th, 2009 from < http://blogs.sun.com/cmasikat/entry/aligning_technology_solutions_with_business >. Grt. Britian. Office of Govt. Commerce 2002, Application Mgmt., 4th Ed., London: The Stationery Office. Grogoriu, A 2009, The Bus. & IT Alignment Iss, Accessed on Sept. 27, 2009 from < http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/ea-matters/the-business-and-it-alignment-issue-34379 >. GrowthWave 2006, Bus.-IT Alignment: A Model for Success. Accessed on Sept. 27, 2009 from < http://www.growthwave.com/resources/GrowthWave-WhitePaper- Alignment-AModelForSuccess.pdf >. Guzman, D 2003, Business-Technologist Visions: Business Needs Outpace Techn., Accessed on Sept. 27, 2009 from < http://www.informationweek.com/news/software/enterpriseapps/showArticle.jhtml? articleID=6512260 >. Hoque, F 2002, The Alignmnt Effect: Hw to Get Real Bus. Value Out of Techn., New York: FT Prss. Johnson, M 2009, IT vs. Business Needs in CMS, Accessed on Sept. 27, 2009 from < http://www.cmsoutlook.com/?p=164 >. Kaplan, RS & Norton, DP 2006, Alignment: Using the Bal. Scorecard to Create Corporate Synergies, Harvard Bus. Prss. Kyobe, M 2008, The Influence of Strategy-making Types on IT Alignment in SME’s, Journal of Systems & Info. Techn., Vol. 10, Iss. 1, pp22-38. Raymond, L & Bergeron, F 2008, Enabling the Bus. Strategy of SME’s Thro’ E-business Capabilities: A Strategic Alignment Persp., Industrial Mgmt. & Data Sys., Vol. 108, Iss. 5, pp 577-595. 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