Presented By:

Abdullah Anees

Presented To:
Sir Saeed Imran

Class:
BBA 2 A

Subject:
English- 2

Roll #:
002
The role of technology in business success:
Technology’s recent evolution has created several opportunities for organizations to
improve their performance and achieve their goals. Organizations have been trying to
understand how technology will add value to their operations and how they can apply it
to their advantage. This essay focuses on the importance of technology, as well as on
challenges faced in managing technology and, most significantly, in aligning it with
business strategy and leading the organization to business success.

Itroduction:
In recent decades, evolving technology has played a crucial role to business success and
in fact, sometimes, even in business survival; it has been necessary for organizations to
incorporate technology, in order to survive in an ever-changing environment and to
increase their competitiveness. Technology is the most important influence in the
evolution of the organization of the future.

Importance of technology to business success:

In a global market where information flows rapidly, it is strategically significant to
manage technology that is able to transform products and services, operations and
processes, companies and even competition.

Technology is important for two reasons; first, it is important to the success of every
business activity, as a company is not able to deal with competition without use of
technology. Secondly, it is technology-driven innovation that can lead an organization to
long-term growth. In terms of business activities, organizations can benefit from
technology by differentiating their products and services, reducing their operating costs,
taking advantage of new opportunities and supporting change processes. As for
technology assisted innovation, it seems that those organizations that do invest in
technology and become innovative increase their market shares, financial figures and
overall competitiveness. Having identified the importance of technology, managers
should take actions of managing technology and adding value to their organizations. In
this sense, contemporary organizations, and especially large corporations, invest huge
capitals on the implementation of technology over the last decades, for example CRM
and ERP systems. Information technology in most business areas facilitates the control of
corporate activities, improves operations and helps in gaining the competitive .In
industries, technology is a key component in order to meet market needs and customers’
expectations. In general, apart from achieving their goals, all the organizations need to
focus on their customers’ needs. Leading companies in the market take initiatives by
using technology to improve their operations, for example marketing and sales, as
traditional approaches to these functions seem to be ineffective. As an example, the
increasing power of the Internet (including social networking) has forced many
companies to change their strategies with the aim of turning this power to their
advantage.

Challenges in managing technologies:

Implementing technology in a complex business environment is challenging and requires
a number of management tools and processes in order to incorporate changes that will
occur. Introducing a new technology should be combined with a strategic plan which
involves a number of factors and challenges, first, top management commitment to the
technological plans is crucial. Secondly, the identification of appropriate technology and
the selection of its source are two further challenged for organizations. Moreover, people
within the company should be able to take advantage of new technology and become
engaged with the aim of increasing value. Organizations should be organized and
structured in a way that allows technological change and advancement. Last but not least,
companies should be able to benefit from this change in order to become more
competitive and achieve their short and long-term goals.

The most significant of the aspects mentioned above is that technology initiatives should
align with the overall business strategy; organizations should use technology according to
business imperatives instead of technical criteria There are multiple challenges in
selecting and applying the most appropriate technology that will improve operational
performance and utilize resources, people and their knowledge more efficiently. As there
are several examples of organizations that either discovered that their technology did not
support their business strategies or selected complex technological solutions, instead of
simple ones that could be more effective.

To conclude, it is necessary to take all the aspects of technology into account, so as to

implement it in ways that will add value to the business. Managers who are responsible
for technology should take initiatives and make the right choices, which reflect the
organization’s strategy and can lead to business success.

Example:
Zara is one of the largest international fashion companies and part of one of the world’s
largest distribution groups, Inditex. Zara’s approach to technology is based on the
principle of low IT investment that can deliver maximum value to the company. Despite
being an information-intensive business with dynamic global operations and millions of
customers, there is remarkably little information technology. Zara focuses on the human
factor instead of technology, allowing people to make all the decisions; there are no CRM
systems, no scheduling software and no ERP platforms involved in their operations; there
are no intranets or online connections among stores, production units, distribution centers
and the headquarters; computers are used in a limited and standardized manner. Despite
all these facts, Zara has achieved better performance and higher profits than its
competitors, thanks to its targeted technology strategy and alignment of the limited
implemented technology with the company’s flexible business plan.

Conclusion:
Technology is one of the most crucial factors for business success. However, it is not the
only factor; it should be an enabler for the organizations strategic plan. As a result, there
is a need to find a balance between technology and business strategy, with the aim of
addressing the organizations needs and achieving business goals.