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The Movement to Business Technologists

As businesses struggle to find the greatest efficiencies in being able to better serve their customer, there seems to be this growing movement from IT to BT (business technologists). The convergence of these two streams of thought is not as haphazard or unconnected as one might think.

If you consider how adept most professionals are with technologies at home (do I really need to list the multitude of gadgets and electronic tools we rely on in our homes? .. .you all know them: computers, iPhones, iPods, iPads, cell phones, PDAs, notebooks, X-Box, Wii, DRVs, and the list simply goes on and on…). The proliferation of these technologies (and, of course, accessible price points) means we are all using many of these technologies at home and in our personal lives every day. And what we have discovered is how much simpler and personal our experiences with communication media can be (tv, music, news media, books, email, text messaging etc.).

This ease of access and swift, almost-instant gratification, now influences all other aspects of our lives…

As a Consumer:
If you are a consumer of banking services - it is highly likely that you have become accustomed to the rapid responses and transactions to be enjoyed with on-line banking … If you are an internet shopper - you are used to fast, reliable delivery of goods with many options on payment, delivery, and sales support … So is it not reasonable - in fact expected - that as consumers we come to anticipate these same standards on our interactions with every business encountered? Reasonable or not - it is a reality. We apply the best standards encountered in any business transaction to the next interaction - and judge the company against those high standards!

As a Professional:
If you consider the comfort and ease we have with all the technologies around us in our personal life, isn't it a frustration when you cannot have at least this level of ease with technologies offered in the work environment? It wasn't that long ago that the technologies we used in the work environment far exceeded our capabilities with home technologies (remember the countless bootleg copies of software taken from work to load on home PCs??). Today, in many firms big and small, the work environment is often lagging behind the technologies we use on a daily basis in other areas of our life.

These two base conflicting experiences (we have all encountered in our personal and work lives) are the driving undercurrents behind the movement of bringing technology to the business. As the business user is consuming technologies and wowed by their ease of use in their personal lives, they then have to go to the office and get frustrated by the inadequacies of the technologies they find in the work context. Consider that the web is an easier resource to use for knowledge than corporate internal systems as an example that highlights this frustration!

IT - once a holy, sanctified and largely misunderstood department that required security clearance to enter the 'computer room', has now become a comfortable reality found throughout the organization in plain sight at the business users' desktop.

With business consumers of technology now a fairly sophisticated breed, the movement to bring technology to the business makes sense, is longed-for by the users who wish to feel empowered at least to the degree they are in their home environments, and is surprisingly welcomed by IT teams that are happy to educate the business to be more self-sufficient - especially when it frees them up from the mundane support requests to address more mission-critical business improving initiatives.

There are a growing number of technologies that are helping to bridge the transition from IT to BT:

  • CRM Systems (Microsoft Dynamics, Salesforce, Sage, & Siebel to name a few) - all bring the power of contact management to the desktop user
  • Collaboration platforms (SharePoint a leader in this space) - facilitates collaboration and document sharing across teams, departments, offices and regions from the desktop environment

Of course, as mentioned in this blog previously, Xpertdoc has fully integrated automated document output capabilities into these and other enterprise technologies, to really deliver custom communication capabilities to the business user at their desktop - with full compliance to corporate policies and standards.

Recognizing that there was a growing frustration amongst business users (especially in the larger insurance, legal, professional services firms) in their inability to accelerate reach to their intended markets (serving those consumers expecting instant gratification!), businesses have been introducing these types of technologies and bringing the ability to create custom communications between the business user and their consumers (internal and external) without sacrificing branding, compliance and corporate standards.

What a relief!

Now consider:-

  • In our role as business partners to our clients, we are able to satisfy the instant gratification standards expected by our clients (without compromising the business)
  • In our role as business professionals, we are no longer frustrated in our work environment and are able to efficiently deliver to the market growth initiatives promoted by most businesses
  • In our role as IT providers, we are energized by the reduction of mundane support tasks (running reports, making minor changes to professional documents, etc.) and embrace the challenges of working with new technologies that bring business-altering initiatives to the organization
  • In our role as business leaders, we are excited by the cost savings and improved productivity gained as the business resources strive to deliver their very best in their roles - unconstrained by the tools of their trade.

A happy convergence of mindset and energy - brought about by a gradual but very strong convergence of technologies in our personal and professional environments! So, a big "Welcome" - to the growing domain of Business Technologists!

This entry was written by Varsha Bhat posted on June 10, 2010 . Follow any comments here with the feed for this post. You can post a comment.

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