Technology

The current state of the economy has led many companies to re-examine budgets and how resources are being allocated.  As many have experienced, this has meant layoffs, company restructuring, and policy changes.  During down times in the economy we also see a lot of innovation and new technology products explode.

A few technologies that have been making some waves are social networking and cloud computing.  I’m not saying they didn’t exist before the market took a turn for the worse, but they really blew up over the past year.  Maybe this would have happened even if the market continued to boom,  but all we know is what actually happened, not what could have happened.

Let’s go into a little more detail about these two phenomenons that have changed the way many businesses complete daily tasks such as file sharing, and departments like marketing and advertising operate.  Over the past year social networking websites like Twitter and Facebook have exploded in popularity for personal, but especially business use.  Many companies use these websites as advertising mediums or another way of broadcasting news.  Research has shown that’s where their customers are spending their time so that’s where they are.  And the best part about these websites, one of the most important aspects of these websites - they’re free!  Advertising budgets are being trimmed, so employees are being forced to find new ways to get the same impact on without spending as much.

The other technology I mentioned was cloud computing.  Companies are switching to more cost-effective solutions like Google Apps for business, which can replace pricey email solutions and even document creating and sharing, and other sites for storage and back-up purposes, replacing costly servers.  Again, the key benefit to cloud computing is the financial savings.

IDG conducted a survey and found the majority of organizations have increased their use of virtualization, mobility and social networking over the past 12-24 months, with one-third reporting an increase in cloud computing.

However, with all this sharing and transparency companies have adopted, and rapid change of moving data to clouds, there is a concern of security.  The changes are happening so quickly in the attempt to keep companies afloat that less than half the companies surveyed have developed policies for employees to guide the use of social networking tools and sites, reported IDG.  And in the same study, more than 8 of 10 respondents are concerned that pressure to cut costs and generate revenue has increased their exposure to security risks.  More than 7 in 10 have already experienced a security incident in the past 18 months.

So what’s more important - keeping the business alive by making rapid changes and cutting costs by adopting new technologies, or doing the research and taking the time to do research and implement new technologies correctly at the cost of the business going under?  Sounds like the lesser of two evils to me.  Is there a middle ground?

By leeann