If there’s one thing that differentiates the present times from the past, and which with time, shall become ever prominent, it’s the speed at which technology and related products become faster, and at the same time which turns existing technologies redundant and obsolete. Quite akin to a tsunami wave, technology almost overwhelms everything with its sheer size, volume, and abilities! And the one who don’t align with it run the risk of either being run over by it or injured in material ways.
Today we give you some reasons for aligning your business with the latest technology and why doing so is very important.
- It saves time
What would you prefer, drafting an email or tying a WhatsApp message? Agreed the latter does not give you the kind of bandwidth the former does in terms of using language constructively and conveying a lot more, but given the speed at which the latter operates, and gets messages, pictures, videos and music across, you can’t really turn a blind eye.
If you do, chances are that competition could blind you shortly. There was a time (it still does) when email marketing was the norm. Till WhatsApp came about and blew it away. How? Because of its speed of sending messages and speed of receiving responses. And best of all, it remains so approachable. You just have to open an app and see your messages! And that is precisely what new technology does. It comes on the back of the most convenient and latest of technology and enhances the experience of the user. That’s the same with optimizing your business keywords, you can gain many potential customers by just making sure your business is on top of search engine results. Let’s say for example, you have a usapawn shop business, you can optimize keywords and rank in searches for pawn shops near me, best pawnshops, or low-interest pawnshops. With the help of the online marketing technology, it will drive more customers to your business.
- Increases efficiency (IoT and edge computing)
In the field of automotive component manufacturing, machining, and turning of stamped and forged parts play a major role. Till a while back these were done on different machines with human interfaces. There could be one or more human operator placing the job/piece/part from one machine to another. This arrangement resulted in reduced speed of work with output which had far lesser accuracy.
IoT, edge computing, and robotization has completely done away with the human interface and in the bargain brought in higher speeds of output at higher efficiency and quality. In some cases, with no or very limited human intervention necessary, the size of the equipment too has reduced drastically thus saving space and giving entrepreneurs more area for higher output.
- Gives more options to do the same thing
Take the example of WhatsApp versus emails, the former is a chat platform that also lets its users use telephony, live face-to-face video chats and even recording in place of just typing and sending message. With the facility to attach files of various kinds, it gives users the ability to do the same activity in different formats which not only increase the chances of getting things done better and faster, but also increases the quality of output!
- Better & higher work-related output
Till a decade back, the only way to send pictures, drawings, sketches etc was through fax. This meant that both receiver and sender had to have things like a fax machine, thermal paper, telephone line etc. – with no guarantee that the output would be of desired quality. If the telephone lines were busy or down, the communication would invariably get affected.
Then came email attachments and a printer-cum-scanner which changed the whole paradigm! Now there was no need to wait for telephones and telephone lines! With the net being independent of any one medium of accesses, communication became much faster and clearer! The process though is far from over with newer things always on the horizon.
- Accessibility (cloud)
Older technology is invariably machine specific. Also called legacy system as opposed to the cloud, this stymies the user’s chances of accesses beyond certain means. Most legacy systems being office or space-specific, accesses were through particular places (like offices) and only to specific people. Moving anywhere beyond meant loss of connectivity and all its unintended consequences.
The Covid-19 pandemic and quite some time before it showed the ill-effects of giving limited accesses to important systems- precisely where the new has a healthy edge over the old. No being aligned with the latest thus hobbles the chances of growth because accesses to important things become limited in most old systems.
- Data security & ease of handling
Data is the lifeblood of any enterprise, and more so, critical tech and finance-related ones. It thus makes immense sense to move out of legacy systems and stay in sync with the latest in data security systems. It’s a given that older systems could be heavily compromised given that their architecture and loopholes would be known to the world of hackers and mischief-makers.
Most dated systems, despite patches belong architecturally to older versions which by their very nature could have loopholes that are difficult to closely entirely. In the light of these, data can be secured by remaining aligned with the latest technology which into the foreseeable future has systems that are hard to crack.
- Cheaper (legacy v cloud)
When it’s about technology, the idiom “Old is gold” doesn’t work, simply because a the latter version uses cleaver means to do away with the ills of the old. By owing an older version, one can be open to being swayed and swindled by those who know of loopholes and how to use them. Also, trying to reenforce older systems don’t come cheap. If the system is quite old, either they won’t have adequate or healthy patches, or that exist could be ill-fitting with glaring gaps which could be used to pilfer data or infect it.
Patches for old systems may be known only to select few who might take advantage of their situation as ask for the moon in return for help. In all, an old system, even though very efficient could be very expensive to maintain. Expense could also be in the form of specific hardware on which it runs. As against this, the latest technology invariably runs on the latest hardware and systems which by present standards could be cost-effective in the foreseeable future.