The world has come a long way from the time of the cavemen and the time of steam engines. Now we have automated elections and fast food online deliveries. Everything is faster and easier because of various information systems that are in place. The boom of the digital economy in the last 20 years has made life easier for many. And it has seen the rise and fall of many businesses.
Admittedly, technology is a huge part of any business. Any business who fails to recognize the role of technology in their daily operations is bound to fail. The swarm is here and there is no choice but to join in. Digital economy has taken us by storm and it’s something that businesses are forced to embrace. Fail to recognize the value of it and competitors are bound to overtake you. It is for this reason that those who’ve already benefitted are less likely to share with anyone their own developed systems. In this technological age, those who have the information and the most advanced technology to process those information have the clear upper hand. They profit the most and they overtake their competition by leaps and bounds. So who are they to share what they have with their competition? It is an ideal world if we would get businesses collaborating with each other by sharing their technology but more often than not, they don’t. Business after all is mostly about making profit and businessmen are always concerned about their net incomes.
Perhaps that is the reason why for most industries likes ours, information systems are outsourced. I have yet to know of a business in my industry that keeps its own IT section fully dedicated to establishing systems for them. Most of the time, it is easier to outsource these things to the experts and simply avail of the readily available software systems out there. After all, the needed systems are not as complex. Although we would benefit from an information system fully designed and customized for us, the cost of developing such would be too much. Why spend for something that we can already buy off the shelves and serve us the same purpose?
This notion of mine is evident with the huge number of independent I.T. companies out there. Why do they exist independent of business organizations? Because in our country, most businesses are hard pressed to maintain fully functional I.T. sections due to the huge operational costs this will entail them. So for their information system needs, they outsource it. As such, the “collaboration” and “sharing” of business information systems happen. It’s not really the businesses choice to collaborate. Rather they have availed of information systems that are similar with the information systems availed by their competitor. Hence the perception of “shared systems”.
The effects of the digital economy is evident in our society. Who doesn’t have a Facebook account these days? It’s a mere social networking tool for some but for businesses, it’s something worth capitalizing on. After all, people share almost all their information via the social networking site. What a great way to gain insight to your consumers or target market!
Information systems are great ways to advance anyone’s business. The digital economy is something that all businesses have the chance to capitalize on. But this is not for every business nor is it the solution to dispelling the extremely competitive nature in the business arena. It’s not for every business because not everyone has the resources for it. It won’t dispel competition but rather it will spur even more competition among businesses. The trick here then is for all developers to band together, providing similar solutions to businesses but at the same time taking into consideration their individual and unique needs. And if developers can forego the businessman’s obsession with profit then it will be an ideal world indeed.
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