Faxes to Floppies - Technological evolution

From Faxes and Floppy Disks to Smartphones and Skype... a tale of technological evolution. Or is it?

Worldwide success. Global reach. Overseas operations. Lucrative contracts. Competitive, deal-closing pricing. Once upon a time, not so long ago, these were all ambitions that could only be realised by enterprise level organisations. Companies with massive budgets to plough into personnel, training, logistics, travel and technology held major advantage.

For the smaller operation, doing business outside of a local or, at a push, regional location was fairly impossible. Even doing business nationally, let alone internationally, would mean long, costly journeys on a regular basis and sizeable budgets to cover the cost of heavily manual management and long-distance logistics. Yes it was possible, at a stretch, but it sure was expensive and time-consuming, making profits negligible.

People of a certain age will recall the era of the long distance operator call that would cost more than jumping in a car and travelling for several hours to have the conversation face to face. Even if you’re not of a certain age, you’ll no doubt of heard these stories from your more mature colleagues or parents.

Around the same time we had the futuristic innovations known as the floppy disk and the fax machine. Revolutions of their time, but now we know that they weren’t exactly known for their speed and security.

Back then, communications were expensive and unreliable. This made it virtually impossible to reach out to the likes of export opportunities, or take advantage of keener import prices for better competitive edge.

Because of the costs and the risks involved in growing, the business that started out small would often remain that way, unless it was backed by outside investment.

Nowadays though, the future for the smaller organisation may enjoy enormously improved potential to compete on a global commercial stage. It really is an entirely different story. But is it the fact that technology has moved on that has led to this opening of opportunities, or something else?

Is it the technology that’s changed things, or something else?

Whilst the evolution of technology itself has obviously played a huge role in a very different future for the smaller company, the key transformation really lies in the fact that technology at enterprise level has become accessible to even the smallest business.

Yes, technological advancements and the power of the internet mean there is no longer any need to step out of your office in London to have a face to face meeting in Manchester. Or Edinburgh. Or Tokyo. And that you can access everything you need to work from wherever you are, whenever you want to. That productivity has seen an unprecedented boost due to streamlined processes and that it is now feasible, thanks to cloud-based disaster recovery systems, to carry on operating in the event of a major outage or incident. It is even possible to tap into big data streams that bring you all the intelligence you need to make critical decisions and to ensure your business is profitable and secure.

But what good are technological advancements like these to the smaller business if they are unaffordable and therefore out of reach?

The good news is that these advancements are NOT out of reach to any size business. The barriers have been removed. But just what is it that has removed these barriers and made this ground-breaking technology available across the board, regardless of how many employees or square metres of workspace you have?

Technology on demand, the saving grace for the smaller business

Technology used to be hardware based; physical things were needed to deliver and manage it. You recall the basement servers. The disk-driven software. The back-up tapes. OK yes we still have some physical entities, but they are simply the devices we use to access the tools and applications we need to do our jobs.

Now we have the cloud, our servers, networking and core software have shifted outside the four walls of our business premises. They are now delivered ‘as a service’, in other words, on a subscription basis. And it’s this subscription model that has made all the difference.

The brilliant thing about buying technology as a service, whether it’s your infrastructure (servers, etc.), your platform (operating system) or your software, is that you don’t face the massive capital outlay that you would if you were investing in physical entities and software licences. Neither do you get all the associated maintenance costs. Excellent news for the small business.

Instead, you pay only for what you use on a monthly basis. That means side-stepping charges for things you simply just don’t use. So if you have workload peaks, the technology you need to deliver what you sell can grow with your demand, and as the troughs cut in, so supply can fall to suit. It means that you don’t pay for what you don’t need, and this flexibility is paramount to the success of the smaller business.

Buying technology as a service gives you anytime access via the internet to everything you need to get on with your work and concentrate on making your business profitable and successful. And that can, with the right platform, include real time business intelligence: something that no prosperous business has ever done without.