‘‘Technology upgradation is a risk management strategy’’

If you can still use your 486 and put it to good use, is it obsolete or not?

Well, it is obsolete, but in case you can put it to good use and extract value,

it makes perfect economic sense. However, from pure definition point, if the

technology is not state-of-the-art, it is obsolete. Naturally then, the other

question that arises is, should everybody at all times be state-of-the-art?

While one school of thought feels that you need not be so if it does not make

business sense, the counter argument is that it always makes sense to be

state-of-the-art. According to the second line, if you lag behind in technology

and suddenly need to upgrade to a more advanced stage or version, the gap

between where you are today and where you want to be, tends to become

comparatively very large. This makes the process of migrating to the new

technology cumbersome and time consuming. This would also mean the business

would loose on the critical time factor, while the rivals make hay. So,

technology upgradation should be part of an organization’s risk management

strategy.

Companies also adopt new technologies in order to make the working atmosphere

more attractive. It is used by many organizations to motivate and retain

employees. New technology would increase productivity and hence profitability

because it’s faster, cheaper, better and offers more functionality. Then there

are also a few others who can be described as early adapters as defined by

Jeffery Mores. These people and organizations keep on adopting latest

technologies just for the sake of it, irrespective of whether it makes economic

sense or not.

Looking at it from the basic principle of enterprise, any company rests on

three pillars–people, processes and technology. To be a high-performance and

competitive company, all these three wheels have to turn in sync. But in today’s

economy, people are changing and so are processes and the only way a company can

ensure that the two change at an equal pace, is by using technology. Hence,

technology is a great enabler. On the other hand, changes in technology also

lead to changes in the other factors.

Obsolescence can happen in all three areas of people, process and technology,

and hence organizations need to take care that all these three wheels keep on

turning at a rate and at a level of state-of-art that is appropriate to the

nature of business. If you invest only in the new technology and do not upgrade

your people skills and processes, you cannot reap the benefit of the technology.

For me, obsolescence is the flip side of change and no matter how good you may

be today, you have to continuously embrace change. You have to live with

obsolescence. But then, you need to deal with it in a proactive manner otherwise

you are a dead meat in today’s new economy.