This White paper narrates the importance of Information Technology in today’s business world and shows how IT can enable to achieve organizational success and drive overall growth.
2. Rapid growth of Information Technology (IT) has changed the whole scenario of business planning, handling and its
development. No enterprise can avoid smart Phone devices these days, if any enterprise wants to stand in the market.
IT not only provides ease of work but it increases productivity which results in increased ROI. Let’s find out what role
IT has to play, financially in your business or enterprise.
How did IT enter in this circle?
Mankind has seen several revolutions and ages while growing to present time. We have seen a long agricultural age
where labor was seen as a key parameter to measure performance and success. Time has passed, and we saw a
Renaissance in industrial age which eliminated labor at various levels. The most critical resource and key performer in
industrial age was capital. The more capital you have, the more speedily you reach the heights of success.
However at this present time, i.e. post-industrial age, we are seeing that capital is no more a key role player in
business or development. Most critical resources in today’s scenario is – Information. Growth, Survival and Success
of any organization today is determined by how it manages information intelligently. In fact organizations have started
a top level management post, i.e.Chief Information Officer (CIO) in their organizational chart.
For managing and accessing information, we have to start using devices whose primary operations which were based
upon processing information. These all came into action with the use of primary calculating and communicating
devices like a calculator, telephone, fax and early stage computers. In the beginning of this age, it was still capitalists,
who could afford the luxury of computers. Time passed, and computers became more powerful tool for development.
The discoveries have changed the computational accuracy, its time of operation with its size.
It first entered with roles in primary billing and then in stocks and inventories. For a long time, computers remained in
back office operations. The computer has limited role or financial implications were only assigned to them; until we
entered into the era of the Internet.
The Internet has paved IT sector an important place in corporate and business circles. Starting from simple mail
checking and file sharing procedures, we are now in the time where corporate giants are adopting Bring Your Own
Device (BYOD) policies. Nothing of these can be done if it is not passed through a comprehensive planning and
processing, which includes financial planning too. Hence, it is unavoidable to assign a significant role in IT sector in
your financial strategy for next year.
Why IT has a Key Role in Strategic Planning today?
We all live in a time, where we cannot afford to lose. It’s a fast era. And to stand in the competition, we need to stay in
loop of advanced business tactics. There are various reasons because of which role of IT is changing in business
these days. Discussing them in brief here will help us understand the scenario in a better manner.
Competition:
Intense level of competition in any business these days are forcing companies to be more and more productive and
promising. Information Technology equips the companies to get an edge and provide them with efficiency and
effectiveness in any work.
3. Globalization:
Business operations like procurement, manufacturing, marketing and sales are becoming global day-by-day. Time
and space are not the constraints to any business now a day as it can get global recognition with the help of
Information Technology.
IT Revolution:
We get better performance and smarter device for the very least amount of financial investment. Information
Technology has enabled a mass of people to use smarter devices which has taken the customer or client closer to
the business holder.
These are merely some points highlighting on very basic fundamentals about the increased importance of IT in every
business – small or big.
Information Technology – In Today’s Perspective
If we look at the core, IT entered the business sector and enterprises with some selected workloads like data
management, print sharing, email , networking and collaboration, identity and access to the use of computers,
network and terminals. However, basic definitions remains same, today these operations have taken a large role and
some additional factors have also influenced corporate giants to adopt the latest technologies.
Mobility:
If you think of IT today, and try to emphasis on the last big feature it has
gained, what would you be your answer? It's nothing but Mobility. No more
information is locked in a local terminal nowadays. All these started with
portable computers, laptops and now tablets and Smartphones. IT has reached
to large masses – individuals and organizations. Hence, to strengthen IT it
should reach more people today.
E Commerce:
Another big aspect is to consider is an Internet. It is not a source of
informational exchange. It is one of the business constituents via online
shopping and eCommerce facilities. Banking online and annual average
financial transactions are increasing day by day due to unveil of eCommerce.
Hence, your IT backbone can certainly bring more amount of money in
comparison to what you save by avoiding it.
4. Increased Capabilities:
With time passing, technological devices are becoming more and more
capable and efficient. Both hardware and software are becoming smarter day
by day. For example, a lot of physical drawing trials for constructing a building
have been replaced by high end Computer Aided Design. And with hardware
and software becoming stronger and efficient, you can now easily have a 3D
view of the drawings which was not possible earlier. External device integration
allows computational devices to be more powerful and performing.
App World:
Other than advancement in software, small sized website and mobile applications
have changed the way we perform little tasks with much time and effort. Now they
are merely a click away. This not only saves time but also provide solutions to
some really critical issues. Apps being in Smartphones and tablet PCs, they can
solve a lot of the organization’s problems while also increase efficiency and
productivity.
The example is pocket sized Smartphones which are more powerful device than early giant computers in terms of
functionality, usability, and many more.
Social Media:
Social Networking has a lot of advantages over classical e-mail communication.
Increased use of social media sites and networks has changed the way of
communication and has also made a lot of enterprise tasks like looking for and
hiring some skilled personnel, advertising or spreading a message to a mass, etc.
possible and easier.
What IT can do for my Organization?
A beginner’s approach to use Information Technology in any form for the organization will be cost control. This is
achieved mainly by automation of certain roles and functions. This part of IT can mainly provide your organization a
data processing help.
Thinking higher prospects, the next step is to automate the inter-organizational functions like supplies, sales, and
delivery. This involves intranet or basic internet facilities with functional standardization and some external hardware
integration.
5. Think of IT as a Smart Investment – Road ahead for 2013
You invest some money and you get it back with a certain amount of profit – a simple most phenomenon for every
business. This implies one straight forward fact, that you get more profit if you invest more. These definitions have
changed their structure since last couple of decades due to rapid development in Information Technology (IT).
Since Chief Information Officers (CIOs) have changed definitions by using IT from cost saving to growth, a need for
efficient and cost effective IT strategy has raised. On the other hand, spending freely on IT is also not advisable. Many
of the organizations have innovated their IT best practices for minimizing the cost and its efficient use in Present IT
Solutions. And most importantly, these best practices seldom require new hardware or software but only require
effective planning from whatever is present.
Some of the points, which an organization should take into account while defining IT cost for the next few years,
would be –
The next approach is where the most of our companies stand today, to reach end-user directly or indirectly. This is
possible only due to merger of telecommunication industry with IT. A lot of financial interfaces and higher security
standards are needed. However, at this level, a promising ROI starts building up and whatever has been spent on IT
starts coming back.
Now, as a roadmap for 2013 and for the years to come in this decade, IT is lot more than whatever is described above.
Whatever, we talked till now is directly related to sales and ROI of the company. However, new strategies focus less
upon costs and sales related uses and more upon IT as a key business parameter and show-runner.
Using the IT resources reduces production cost and decrease the market price that ultimately attracts customers to
your business. With the availability of mobile devices, you can provide excellent service with financial accuracy to the
customers which increases customer satisfaction ratio and retains your customer for a long time.
One important parameter which most of us miss is to use IT in the standardization process for giant corporate
houses. This standardization removes a lot of barriers between the two organizations and drastically decreases the
chance of errors, which sometimes may cost a lot. Some of the procedures where this standardization will be useful
are –
Market Driven Reorganization
Mergers and Acquisition
Downsizing and Consolidation
Security and Crisis Management
With IT, as a competitive advantage factor, where every organization has to rethink upon technology adoption at their
level. IT has to be associated with growth and progress as major objective and not cost saving. Too much cost Control
in IT can be really harmful for the development of the company.
Do not think of IT as a cost, think of it as a smart investment and a strategy maker and then allocate a budget.
This will be laid a foundational stone for any organization to grow and flourish.
6. About Softweb Solutions
Softweb Solutions is itself a brand among IT strategy planners. We provide hardcore IT services like enterprise
mobility, business needs and industry specific solutions. We are serving on every technology in demand today, like
.NET, Java, Sybase Unwired Platform, CMS, HTML 5, iOS, Android, and a lot more. Contact us on
or visit our website for more details.info@softwebsolutions.com www.softwebsolutions.com
Align all the business units on single IT infrastructure or platform. With experts on the panel, decide which kind
of IT combinations would best suit your business or organizational functions. However, compatibility must also
be answered.
Assess each and every level of your present IT infrastructure and improve where it is necessary. Spending too
much without proper assessment is not a wise idea to follow.
Optimize IT infrastructure for your company all kinds of operations. Implement best practices. This will improve
efficiency and will allow present resources to be useful on strategic activities.
Review your policies once again, whether your company can implement a strong Bring Your Own Device (BYOD)
policy or not. Many organizations have started implementing best practices for BYOD policies. This saves a lot of
cost, increases employee satisfactio, enhances the sales force, and creates new mobile workforce opportunities.
By 2017, more than 38% of the companies will have their strong BYOD program and will stop providing devices
to the employees.
Focus on both internal and external parameters. Hire some good strategy for internal operations and inter-
organizational standards. On the other hand, leverage your capabilities for external exposure of your brand on
web world as well as tablets and smartpones with mobile apps and device compatible web applications.
There are always professionals available who are ready to take challenges. You can think of collaborating with a
professional IT firm, which can help you out in building state of the art infrastructure. This provides a
professional touch to everything you ave and frees a lot of your company pressure for IT implementation.
Seeing the overall picture, we can construct a solid roadmap for 2013 with IT costs as a major objective. This is not
about the IT marketing campaigns but it is all about IT implementation into your enterprise. It is about having IT
strategical implementation – a cost effective technique. An optimized IT strategy can promisingly increase growth rate
and efficiency of your organization. It’s time to move from Just an IT innovation to core business strategies.