Technology on collision course with business

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It was a time when if you went out with friends and plans changed, you had to locate a working payphone to call and inform your parents (at least you could get change to use one back then).
Now we take the ability to communicate from almost anywhere for granted and complain more about bad network connection than about not finding a phone nearby.
Technology has changed and with it our habits. The cellphone is thus a disruptive technology that has made the payphone almost obsolete in this case.

A disruptive technology refers to an innovation that helps create a new market and eventually goes on to disrupt an existing market.
Think email and the postal service, iPods and the music industry. It brings a new way of thinking and disrupts human behaviour.
Old markets either collapse or have to reinvent themselves. In areas where internet shopping has proliferated the postal service has shifted to delivering parcels to shoppers rather than letters.

With the rapid change in technology, businesses are now confronted with ways and means of using this to their benefit.
Cloud computing means that you can have a paperless office.
Google Docs offers a simple way of storing data online with simultaneous access to multiple users (their Cloud Connect function means that you can now do the same for Office Documents).

I am writing this column off Open Office, a free to use downloadable software that achieves most of my word processing needs without pirating from Microsoft.
Web access smartphones and their multiple apps (an abbreviation that meant nothing to all but a few hardcore IT guys until the iPhone) mean that you can run your business from your phone, with programmes to synchronise your laptop, email and phone.

A side note on Apple here, seeing as I have mentioned two of their products so far, is their ability to see into new markets and be the first to create trendy devices that tap into them has made them market leaders in the field.
While the rest of the music industry was trying to legislate MP3s out of existence Apple embraced the change to totally disrupt the way we do music.

In some cases technology changes at such a rate that one innovation is scarcely adapted to, before another arrives.
Digital printing made it easier to print books cheaply, then came the electronic book and Amazon’s Kindle e-book reader and bookshops face a new challenge that may see them go out of business.
Technology proliferates but with all the options available how do you get something to work for your business?

Firstly, consider usability. Simplicity in use needs to be key. If it takes too long or is too complicated then you end up wasting time rather than making things better.
The next major criteria is integration. How can a new technology be effectively worked into the process of your business? Again the reduction of complexity is key.
Cost considerations have to be weighed up both in terms of return on investment and the impact that change will have on your product and client satisfaction.

The latest printing equipment is expensive to upgrade to, but if you are in the printing business can you really afford not to be using it when it cuts your turnaround time dramatically with the improvements in quality of digital print?

Does the cost of upgrading a medical practice to electronic client booking and data storage balance with the impact on efficiency, emailed client reminders and billing (also does legislation on client data protection need to be updated to ensure effective standards of security)?
Finally, consider the steps you may need to take to minimise the negative aspects of disruption.

E-mails are a great example of this. Leaving your e-mail on and checking it every time mail arrives is one of the most effective ways of disturbing your thought patterns and avoiding focusing one’s attention on a task at hand.

Now in certain circumstances this may be necessary, but as a general rule I check mail twice a day – once at the start and once at the end of a day.
That means I can focus on everything else in between.