Science and Technology

Information technology (IT) refers to the management and use of information using computer-based tools. It includes acquiring, processing, storing, and distributing information. Most commonly it is a term used to refer to business applications of computer technology, rather than scientific applications. The term is used broadly in business to refer to anything that ties into the use of computers.

Mostly businesses today create data that can be stored and processed on computers. In some cases the data must be input to computers using devices such as keyboards and scanners. In other cases the data might be created electronically and automatically stored in computers.

Small businesses generally need to purchase software packages, and may need to contract with IT businesses that provide services such as hosting, marketing web sites and maintaining networks. However, larger companies can consider having their own IT staffs to develop software, and otherwise handle IT needs in-house. For instance, businesses working with the federal government are likely to need to comply with requirements relating to making information accessible.

The constant upgrade in information technology, along with increasing global competition, is adding difficulty and hesitation of several orders of scale to the business and trade. One of the most widely discussed areas in recent business literature is that of new organizational network structures that hold survival and growth in an environment of growing complexity.

Effective implementation of information technology would decrease liability by reducing the cost of expected failures and increase flexibility by reducing the cost of adjustment. The businesses reaction to the environment remains to be the vital determinant for its effectiveness. The capabilities and flexibilities of computer-communication systems make them gradually more appropriate to businesses by being able to respond to any specific information or communication requirement.

Information Technology is having impact on all trade industries and businesses, in service as well as in manufacturing. It is affecting workers at all levels of organizations, from the executives to middle management and clerks. Information technology is increasingly becoming a basic factor of all types of technologies such as craft, engineering, routine, and non-routine.

The advances in Information Technology would result in remarkable decline in the costs of synchronization that would lead to new, concentrated business structures. It enables the business to respond to the new and urgent competitive forces by providing effective management of interdependence.

In the near future businesses would be facing a lack and a redundancy of information called information glut. To solve the information-glut companies will need to introduce methods for selective thinning out of information. Improvements in telecommunications will make it easier to control business units dispersed over different parts of the world. Advances in telecommunications, would result in increased distance-communication. Indirect communication would be preferred for well-structured information for routine, preprogrammed and decision processes.

“The art of progress is to preserve order amid change and to preserve change amid order.” — Alfred North Whitehead, 19th century British mathematician and philosopher

As Achieve (my first consulting company) was working with our Clients to implement Toward Excellence (the cultural change process we had developed in conjunction with Tom Peters) I was growing increasingly uneasy. Something didn’t feel right. In In Search of Excellence, Peters and Waterman presented a powerful case against “the rational model” of management. It forcefully argued (among other things) for focusing on people (customers and those serving them) rather than processes, action instead of analysis, and becoming values rather than numbers driven.
Sure there was a strong need for managers to move away from the overstuffed bureaucratic, controlling, and hierarchical approach many companies had fallen into.

But I also knew of companies that were entrepreneurial, exciting, people-oriented, customer-driven — and they struggled or even went down the tubes because they used a shoebox for an accounting system and yesterday’s technology. Some of these managers came from the we-must-still-have-money-because-we-still-have-checks-left school of business mismanagement.

It seemed to me the real issue was balance. So as I went to work on my first book, The VIP Strategy, I developed an early version of the “triangle model”. After using it with numerous management teams to frame key organization improvement issues, and continuing to study, speak, and write about the performance balance, we have since further refined the model:
Performance Balance Triangle

Technology — an organization’s core technology is the expertise and/or equipment that produces the products or services that its customers buy. Supporting technology may include web-based applications, software, telecommunications, robotics, production equipment, and the like to produce, deliver, or support the organization’s core technology. Personal technology is the technical expertise I bring to the production, delivery, or support of either core or supporting technologies.

Management Systems and Processes — organizational processes are the flow of materials, work activities, customer interactions, or information across an organization to produce, deliver, or support the products or services that its customers buy. Organizational systems are the underlying feedback and measurements loops, performance improvement methods, and organization structure. Personal systems and processes are the methods, habits, and approaches we all use to get things done.

People (Leadership) — this includes those people an organization serves, the people they would like to serve, people in the organization doing the producing and serving, key external partners (such as distributors, strategic alliances, suppliers, etc.), everyone in the organization supporting the producers and serving the servers, shareholders or funding partners, and (very deliberately last) management.

In top performing organizations, each area is strong and constantly improving. For example, in our technological age, we all need to ensure that we’re constantly upgrading our technical expertise and technological tools. We can’t afford to fall behind. In my case, my notebook computer has been a huge help with email, managing my time, storing and easily retrieving information, keeping contact and project records, maintaining our database, developing slides for presentations and workshops, and accessing a multitude of information and research through the Internet. Without it, I’d be 30 – 40% less productive and would need much more administrative help.

But as with any technology, just automating sloppy personal habits and disorganization will mean we’ll just mess it up faster.
If our understanding of our customer expectations are only partially accurate, expensive technology and “reengineered” processes will only deliver partial results. If people in our organizations can’t communicate face-to-face, electronic communications won’t improve communications very much. If we haven’t established the discipline of setting priorities for our time or organizing ourselves, a notebook computer or other wireless mobile device won’t do it for us.

Systems and processes is also an extremely important area. An organization can be using the latest technologies and be highly people-focused, but if the methods and approaches used to structure and organize work is weak, performance will suffer badly. People in organizations can be empowered, energized, and enlightened, but if systems and processes (and technologies) don’t enable them to perform well, they won’t. Developing the discipline and using the most effective tools and techniques of personal and organization systems and processes is a critical element of high performance.

The Performance Balance triangle has people or leadership at its base. That’s very deliberate. In well-balanced, high performing teams or organizations, technology, systems, and processes serve people. For example, as information technology (IT) specialists study why so many huge investments in equipment and software haven’t paid off, they find the problem comes back to how the technology is designed and used, by whom, and for whom. An executive in California’s Silicon Valley summed up an important perspective making the rounds there, “we used to say people need to be more technology literate. Now we say that technology needs to become more people literate.”

To one who has seen the adverse effects of some technologies on the environment the question how does technology protect the environment? May have only one answer – it doesn’t! The reality however is that from the onset science and technology has been at the forefront of ensuring the environment is safeguarded. Science is a weapon through which good or evil can be done depending on the consciences of those who are using it. There are lot of ways in which technology has been used to restore the integrity of the environment.

From reversing the damage done by the chlorofluorocarbons (c.f.c’s) on the ozone layer to minimizing the harmful effects of the greenhouse gases which bring about global warming science has played a key role in safeguarding the environment. Through science machines that were discovered to be releasing c.f.c’s into the atmosphere were removed from the market and in there place others were invented a case in point the refrigerators of old and modern refrigerators that are CFC free. Through scientific research it has been discovered that presence of trees and vegetation greatly decrease the amount of greenhouse gases like carbon dioxide by absorbing them to use in their natural processes such as photosynthesis which has led to more environmental awareness

Advancements in the scientific process of wastage disposal have led to the discovery and adoption of new and better ways for carrying out refuse and sewerage disposal. Recycling has today become a major activity the world over which has been through the intervention of science. This has led to conservation of resources for example purifying sewerage into clean and safe drinking water and the recycling of polythene into usable plastics.

Use of simple equipment such as garbage cans for disposing litter and recycling of natural waste for instance using vegetable waste as manure may seem inconsequential but in the long term the benefits are left for all to see.

Machines that in the past used to release a lot of toxic fumes into the atmosphere like cars, manufacturing plants and factories and mining apparatus have nowadays been modified to use fuel that does not release harmful gases in the atmosphere. Through the discovery of better ways of making fuel like from use of sugar cane processing the harmful effects of polluting gases have been greatly reduced. Use of more efficient energy systems and means of disposal is how technology protects the environment. Continued scientific research and study into the environmental hazards that abound keeps on creating awareness about what is right and wrong, what should be avoided or done more all in the interest of protecting the environment.

The use of solar panels to harness the sun’s energy, application of thermal and wind energy has provided the necessary incentive and alternative to the over use of oil and petroleum as the primary source of fuel which has led to better use of natural resources and the reduction of air pollution from toxic fumes. From these few elaborate examples its clear how science and technology is protecting the environment.