Businesses must be productive to succeed and to be more productive they must embrace the technologies that are available to them to ensure success. For over 150 years business technology has given businesses the edge that they desired over their competitor and allowed them to produce results faster, but also saving man hours in the process. From the telegraph and stock ticker, to the Fax machines of the 70s and on to the information age of the 80s with email and the first group ware, business technologies have given us a 24 hour knowledge factory to pull from. Business technologies can be put into simple groups based upon their use. During our group discussion we found that most technologies fit into multiple groups, thus showing a greater use with more effect to the company. The groups that we used for this study were a) communications technology b) collaboration technology c) meeting technology and d) information technology.
Communications technologies These technologies are used by business to convey information by voice, in writing and electronically. These include the hard wired telephone and VOIP (voice over internet protocol); email and instant messaging on a computer; and finally today’s smart phone which has many more uses then just basic communicating.
Collaboration technologies Collaboration technologies are used in business for the sole purpose of allowing an exchange and collection of information between single and groups of people. Ever since the advent of Lotus Notes in the 1980’s, businesses have used these technologies to benefit project and program groups. Technologies included in this group include the different networking systems; the phone or smart phone; and different wiki’s and file sharing programs like Team Center and Cloud programs.
Meeting Technologies The basis for meeting technologies are to bring together groups of people to allow for an exchange of information and to also give updates on programs and policies, just to name a few. Technologies found in this group include the teleconference system (which is another version of the phone); the video conference system which allows the users to see the other groups within the meeting and sometimes even share fires; and net meeting systems which can allow groups to meet at a virtual meeting site on the computer precluding the need for traditional conference rooms.
Information technologies Within information technologies are those technologies that allow a business to search for and use data gleaned from the internet, data bases and other storage sites. Computer search engines, software used to search multiple sites and data base query programs are just a few that fit into this category. These may be used by everything from a desktop computer to a laptop computer or tablet and even by today’s smart phones, which shows yet another use for the technological advancement of the simple phone. Technologies have come a long way in helping businesses to succeed over the years, many of them helpful in more categories then one. From the simple phone to the computer of the information age and on to the age of virtual meetings and telecommuting, businesses are seeing more and more ways to succeed. As long as these technologies are used properly businesses will have no problems with meeting the requirements of information in the present and the knowledge that will be needed in the future.