How to cut through the technology hype  

From cloud com­put­ing and blockchain to machine learn­ing and the meta­verse, sift­ing through shiny new tech toys is a time-con­sum­ing busi­ness. How do you decide if an emerg­ing tech­nol­o­gy is a ‘must have’ for your organ­i­sa­tion, and are there ben­e­fits to being an ear­ly adopter?

Migrat­ing to the cloud took cen­tre stage in the pan­dem­ic. For Sue Daley, direc­tor for tech­nol­o­gy and inno­va­tion at the trade asso­ci­a­tion techUK, the poten­tial ben­e­fits in scal­a­bil­i­ty and agili­ty make it the undis­put­ed build­ing block of any tech trans­for­ma­tion. 

“Cloud com­put­ing is the dig­i­tal foun­da­tion which allows all oth­er techs to con­verge and, in our view, mov­ing your valu­able assets over to the inter­net should be your num­ber one pri­or­i­ty going for­ward, what­ev­er the size and nature of your busi­ness,” Daley says.

When it comes to inves­ti­gat­ing the pletho­ra of new dig­i­tal inno­va­tions to use in the cloud, it’s impor­tant you don’t allow clever new giz­mos to become a dis­trac­tion.

“How­ev­er appeal­ing the prod­uct or ser­vice, make sure you know how it will achieve your objec­tives and fit in with your exist­ing tech infra­struc­ture, because oth­er­wise you may be wast­ing your mon­ey,” Daley adds. 

Data demands

Bet­ter use of data and data ana­lyt­ics soft­ware is a cru­cial issue across all indus­tries. It could be well worth inves­ti­gat­ing edge com­put­ing: the abil­i­ty to cap­ture, store, process and analyse data local­ly or at the ‘edge’ of the net­work, rather than at a remote data cen­tre.

It’s high­ly like­ly that 5G, bio­met­rics, machine learn­ing and all the oth­er dig­i­tal tech being cre­at­ed and refined today will even­tu­al­ly be high­ly rel­e­vant for busi­ness­es. In the short term, how­ev­er, invest­ing in a sys­tem such as the inter­net of things (IoT) – the term used for phys­i­cal devices which con­nect via the web – may not offer any spe­cif­ic com­mer­cial advan­tages, unless it can be com­bined with some­thing a busi­ness already uses, such as 3D print­ing.

The much-hyped meta­verse – which enables busi­ness­es to offer new ser­vices or dig­i­tal equiv­a­lents of their phys­i­cal prod­ucts – offers a tan­ta­lis­ing glimpse of our tech future. For now, how­ev­er, many busi­ness­es are ham­pered by issues as fun­da­men­tal as poor mobile con­nec­tiv­i­ty. 

For these organ­i­sa­tions, get­ting the basics right is far more impor­tant than invest­ing in advanced fin­ger­print map­ping or aug­ment­ed real­i­ty, says Mar­tin McTague, nation­al chair­per­son of the Fed­er­a­tion of Small Busi­ness­es.

“One in three small busi­ness­es receive down­load speeds of less than 10 megabits per sec­ond and close to half are affect­ed by poor mobile con­nec­tiv­i­ty,” he says. “With the cost of doing busi­ness soar­ing, small busi­ness­es should look close­ly at where new tech can add mean­ing­ful val­ue, rather than try­ing to stay ahead of the curve for the sake of it. There’s no use try­ing to run before you can walk.”   

When it comes to inno­va­tions like blockchain, a dig­i­tal ledger sys­tem ini­tial­ly used for cryp­tocur­ren­cy trans­ac­tions, busi­ness­es should look close­ly at the costs and ben­e­fits and be cer­tain that any invest­ment will add val­ue in the short term.

Secu­ri­ty must always be a top con­cern, with the major­i­ty of SMEs now view­ing ran­somware and cyber attacks as an ever-present threat.

“When widen­ing their use of tech, it’s vital that small firms ensure that staff can work safe­ly from home with­out the threat of net­work breach­es and ensure their cus­tomers can receive goods and ser­vices remote­ly with­out being com­pro­mised,” says McTague.

People, processes, technology

With ade­quate prepa­ra­tion and repeat­ed test­ing, organ­i­sa­tions which opt to tri­al an emerg­ing new tech at an ear­ly stage in the life­cy­cle can gain a com­pet­i­tive advan­tage as and when the tech matures. 

How­ev­er, before embark­ing on a tri­al it is impor­tant to appraise the business’s cur­rent skills lev­el and process­es. Where pos­si­ble, organ­i­sa­tions should iden­ti­fy an indi­vid­ual or team with the knowl­edge to guide it through. 

Ensur­ing that the tech will be wel­comed by your staff and not resent­ed is anoth­er vital part of the prepa­ra­tion stage.

“Being an ear­ly adopter can give you knowl­edge and under­stand­ing and if you are sat­is­fied that you have the resources to suc­cess­ful­ly steer it through a tri­al, it’s prob­a­bly worth going ahead,” says Daley. “In order to give the tech a fair chance though, you need to have your data in an appro­pri­ate for­mat and a dig­i­tal frame­work which can sup­port the new­com­er tech and demon­strate its abil­i­ty to increase effi­cien­cy and improve the lives of your staff.”

As world-class inno­va­tors such as Tes­la founder Elon Musk have amply demon­strat­ed, an ear­ly pres­ence in a mar­ket attracts the loy­al­ty of cus­tomers and employ­ees and gar­ners great pub­lic­i­ty. How­ev­er, the risks of being an ear­ly adopter are equal­ly clear. As tech becomes more com­plex, the dan­gers of rep­u­ta­tion­al dam­age caused by grem­lins in the machine becomes more like­ly. The PR enjoyed by a pio­neer may quick­ly turn sour if ear­ly users have a neg­a­tive expe­ri­ence. 

“With more users, data, and con­nec­tions the risk of cyber attacks increas­es. And as tech­nolo­gies devel­op, ear­ly mover advan­tage can quick­ly become a dis­ad­van­tage when lat­er movers pro­duce new, improved ver­sions of the orig­i­nal prod­uct,” says Stephan Hart­gers, vice pres­i­dent of dig­i­tal strat­e­gy at the tech con­sul­tan­cy Mobiq­ui­ty Europe.

Busi­ness­es that come late to a tech­nol­o­gy can also reap the ben­e­fits of low­er prices once the ear­ly glitch­es have been ironed out, usu­al­ly at great cost to the ear­ly birds.  

An organisation’s over­all risk appetite and dig­i­tal matu­ri­ty should help dic­tate whether being an ear­ly adopter is a smart move. How­ev­er, puni­tive bar­ri­ers to late adop­tion and inter­nal resis­tance to change are equal­ly impor­tant.

For Hart­gers, trans­form­ing a neg­a­tive, techno­phobe cul­ture into a more pos­i­tive and pio­neer­ing one may be the most vital step of all in effect­ing a dig­i­tal trans­for­ma­tion.