Technology adoption is getting faster but how about the people?

Technology adoption is the bridge between the past and the digitalization of a company. Technological transformation cannot happen without people.

If the current pandemic has done anything arguably positive for the world is the acceleration of technology and implicitly, software development. Japan is struggling to find enough unique credit card numbers amid the risen demand. Laptop demand is as well on the rise as a direct consequence of the sudden shift of work from home. The number of companies going online has rapidly risen. All indicators point to a deeper digitalization of our society.

Companies are using digitalization as a competitive advantage. However, this is a hard task. In the current business climate where everybody is increasing its technological game, it is getting harder to find the technology that will differentiate a company. Furthermore, even when companies decide on the adoption of new technology, there are still important barriers.

Technological adoption of the popular new technologies

Let us examine which are the new technologies that companies are prone to invest in. A 2019 survey made by the Economist Intelligence Unit and applied on 750 executives across countries like Australia, China, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Singapore, UK, the US, and India gives us the following insight.

The decision-makers in leading countries consider Big data and analytics the most important trend for their businesses. At the same time, their second concern is Cybersecurity. AI and Cloud computing are the third most important technological trend for their company. The technological adoption of these is meant to improve efficiency, the expansion of the business, and the increase of customer experience.

What is slowing down the technological transformation?

Most of the research agrees that the main barriers of adoption of new technology are a mix of cost + the level of complexity + skillset and organizational culture.

According to the above-mentioned survey the top deterrence for faster technology adoption are, in order of priority:

•  Security & privacy concerns – 51.4%
• Inadequate technological skills when it comes to employees – 42.6%
• Standards & regulations – 39.4%
•  Replacing the “old way” – 31.4%
•  Cost – 30.2%

Data by The Economist Intelligence Unit Limited, based on executives being asked to nominate the top three obstacles.

The people’s place in a technological world

Even if the technology is being praised for transforming businesses, the main catalyst of change are still people. They are the ones that transform data into information, that make the decision and ultimately implement them or not. Therefore, people’s perceptions can lead to transformation. This is what in the modern business vocabulary we call organizational culture. And that’s why leading companies invest in this culture.

Hence, making sure the team is on board whenever faced with technological change is vital for the transformation.

Two elements when it comes to the people

And there are two important elements to this process.

First, top management needs to make sure that the vision and the reasons behind it are easily understandable to everyone in the company.

Then, change needs to be led rather than managed, because leaving old habits behind is the most difficult of tasks on any level. And the road towards technology adoption of a company leads through the people.

AROBS

When it comes to AROBS, success was brought about by the almost 1000 professionals that make up the company. Their professionalism mixed with the company’s know-how brought AROBS to be a leading company in Romania.

The culture of involvement created here is just as viable in times of a pandemic, as it was before.