Sharpening Business Leadership by embracing Management Technology

Management technology is boosting business leadership capabilities. Image Credit: Source.

Businesses in the current day are not what they were a few years back. There has been a constant upgrading of resources, the way we look at data, along with enhanced tools and systems that help decision-makers at the highest levels to be on top of things, as they choose and when they choose. Reaction time has been radically cut down and so has the time on project delivery and actualization. This has been possible due to the influence of management technology that cuts across verticals and enables swift decisions.

“Management is doing things right                                                                           Leadership is doing the right things”                                                                          By Peter Drucker

What is Management Technology?

Management technology can be seen as a mix of management practices and procedures, engineering and science which has technology as the main enabler of wealth and the creation of value. We have the “Six Facets Model” that surmises that management technology is an interdisciplinary and integrative field that focuses mainly on problem-solving.

The different aspects of this model are Product and Process Integration, Evaluation, Planning, Implementation, Change Management and finally Training and Engagement so that organizational capabilities are increased along with the development of the workforce along beneficial lines. In all the above areas, technology managers, as they are now called, have to be aware of the fact that networking and communications are the most important facilitators for bringing about changes to the way the organization positions itself globally.

“It is not just one project; technology will give you only 20% of the ROI. Process changes will give you 50% of the ROI. And the last 30% of the ROI equation is the people… that is your change management piece”             By Dan Aptor

Challenges faced

Digitalization is rampant in everything we see and do, and organizations are no exception to this phenomenon. Adoption of new technologies like Artificial Intelligence, the Internet of Things, Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality help to drive the growth and refinement of any given organization that has a recognizable footprint and a comparatively stable customer base. Needless to say, the effect these technologies have on delivery, manufacturing, and management of supply chains is disruptive, to say the least.

Most organizations react favorably to these sea changes in interaction and collection of big data; they invest in updated technology and this helps to balance out the capital expenditure with the return on investment. But it has to be remembered that the effects of new technology are not only realized with the above markers for success.

“Good management consists of showing average people how to do the work of superior people” By. John D. Rockefeller

Technology has a profound effect on the overall business strategy of a company, and it can also enhance the strategic thinking of decision makers high up in the hierarchy. The challenge is to learn how to glide on the winds of change so that a particular company is poised for the next big change, ready to embrace it when it becomes mainstream, and profit from it at the end of the day. Management technology has the potential to eliminate most of the guesswork involved in shifting gears in a changing commercial scenario. 

Role of Enterprise Solutions

Some of the new jobs we have today simply did not have any existential basis even as far back as 10 years ago. Technology has been the main enabler of jobs, and in the light of this fact, Enterprise Systems are what any modern organization banks on. These systems are actually software packages deployed over a large scale that have the ability to keep track of and control all the different and complex functions of a business. Here are a few of the ways in which Enterprise Solutions have helped;

1. Storing of Business Data in usable formats: In order to improve customer experience, the data on call has to be stored in such a format that it can be interpreted and analyzed when the time comes. The response time of a company in the retrieval of information and acting upon it is often what decides the quality of customer experience.
2. Streamlining Customer Service Experience: Usage of Enterprise Resource Planning gives businesses the chance to automate the process of customer service, ensuring that employees deliver uniform customer experience. 
3. Maximizing IT infrastructure reliability: Enterprise systems have more reliance on IT systems, featuring more uptime and little to negligible downtime. Consistent and strong customer service involves ensuring these IT systems are performing 100% always.
4. Customer Data safety: many big corporations fall prey to data breaches, with devastating results. Ensuring that customer data is safe should be a business practice because of its financial import. 
5. Real-time Access: the cost of running a particular business is lessened dramatically once the system is in place. This frees up a budget to allocate to other areas of business development. 
6. SoP: Real-time data storage which is comprehensive ensures a higher standard of overall customer satisfaction. The standardization of customer experience is also tweaked to achieve the desired results. 
7. Improvement of Supply Chain Management: ERP’s have the inherent capability of sharpening and enhancing supply chain management, it ensures timely delivery of products and shipments, reliability and reduced costs.
8. Regulatory Compliance: This is a big deal and in the last five or so years, different compliance acts have made it absolutely necessary for big businesses to toe the line or risk being penalized. With automated data collection methods, ERP’s have the upper hand. 

The need of the hour

The importance of management technology is all the more evident, given there is a lack of visibility from the work floor to the CEO’s wings. Management technology needs to align the overall business strategy along finer lines, take a call on capital expenditure that has been carefully thought out before, be on top of operational tactics and increase empathy with customers.

Any enterprise technology management solution adopted should have tested methods for collection of market data based on real-time reports, along with state of the art analytics which helps executives in their planning and decision making.

Thus a lot of business leaders are pitching for Augmented Reality solutions that have the capability to process the digital information on hand with available corporate choices and “superimpose” them on the views of a human being of the real world, and that too in real-time. Visionaries are already calling Augmented Reality the next big equalizer in terms of balancing the phenomenal processing power of machines with human access and ability.