Today’s business world certainly looks a lot different than it did just a few decades ago and it could be argued that a large part of the change has come with the rapid adoption of the Internet not only by consumers, but also businesses. Humans and the companies that they create have always had to work together to achieve any level of success. Today, it is hard to imagine that the telephone itself was only created 150 years ago. For a short time before that, communication was able to travel by telegraph, but before that, it was all through pen and paper. The advent of modern communication technology is one of the principal reasons why businesses today have to perform at breakneck speeds and why we are finding such a stupefying amount of change in our daily lives.
Pulling Together for the Sake of Efficiency
Companies in South Africa are finding that they have to compete now on a global basis, due to the new realities of the global marketplace. This means that if a company even has only one office, all of the employees have to be able to be able to communicate with each other effectively, especially if they are working jointly on a particular project. With the advent of powerful mobile devices, many of the employees may actually not even be in the office, but constantly in the field. The ability to unite disparate members of the company either through voice calls, conference calls or even video presentations has become crucial to every company’s survival and ultimate success.
Keeping Organizations Efficient
The new mantra in organizational behaviour is collaboration. Companies are finding that if they can get their employees to work together more efficiently, especially if they are in different offices, perhaps not even in the same country, productivity can increase dramatically. Many of these solutions are cloud-based, which means that they share documents or other collaboration tools such as videoconferencing, all leveraging the power of the Internet. The need for unified communications and collaboration is undoubtedly going to increase in the ensuing years, as each company tries to gain a competitive advantage over their adversaries. The old saying says that only the strong survive. In today’s modern world, only those that collaborate stand a chance of surviving.
Where Do We Go from Here?
No one really knows what the future will bring. Technology has a way of moving in a nonlinear way, which means that tomorrow’s innovations are either on the drawing board, or just the figment of an inventor’s imagination. All we have to do is look back over the last 20 years to see how far we’ve come, technologically speaking. Today, there is even talk of having smartphones that can be worn on your wrist, using holograms for videoconferencing and other solutions which at present look more like science fiction. But you can be sure that, given the speed with which innovation is progressing, many of these far-fetched ideas will be a reality in just a matter of years. The important thing is to be prepared for change, because it is undoubtedly coming. Any company that embraces the latest technological solutions is sure to be at the forefront of their market.
