Adding Digital Assets for Efficiency or Simply Adding Headaches?

How often are you in a restaurant, clothing store, train station, or airport feeling like you are waiting just too long for your food, flight, or whatever service to be completed (some may call me impatient). I’m constantly thinking of easier ways to provide services that we’ve had for centuries, but now can integrate them with technology. There still seems to be something missing from the market that is hindering efficiency. The common theme goes back to the lack of the humanizing aspect of improving processes.

Where’s the connection between employee and technology?

75% of the global workforce will be made up of millennials by the year 2025. To put it simply, 75% of the workforce in a few years will be pretty savvy with most technology. We will no longer be looking for the employees that know hardware/software because many of times we will just assume that they do. Companies need to focus on using technology and the proper people to maximize efficiency. The first step is ditching the “we’ve always done it this way” mentality and think new and fresh. I’ve witnessed one too many times where teams adopt new technology, but the team is still working as if they didn’t have the technology at all. This is why I try to listen to my employees and learn their expertise, leverage the expertise to integrate it into new technology in a more seamless manner.

Is efficiency through automation actually efficient?

Efficiency is a strange term as many tend to look at it as taking the easy way out. Our market should match efficiency with resilience. This idea of resilience would be driving towards increased competition, to ultimately lead to meaningful innovations. Let’s face it, most companies struggle with sustaining robust growth and it had executives concerned. We want to invent the wheel to get ahead of the competition, but leaders tend to go back to what has been done with similar companies, using one-size fits all theory -- don’t fall into this. Just because your competition adopted a technology, does not mean it will work for you. Firms tend to innovate faster than humans operating the innovations can adopt. However, in a study of 500 senior executives, the majority feel their company is lagging behind in its innovation efforts. It’s about finding the balance between innovation and having your employees keep up and remain efficient.

So back to the restaurant, clothing store, train station, or airport. Is there technology that we think could enhance processes out there? Absolutely. Does it mean it should be done at the second of the technology development? Maybe, maybe not. These are good conversations to be having to continue the innovation conversation to elevate the market. In the Transformative Age that we live in, you have to be ready. What can hinder efficiency in my mind is the preparedness of the company. I like to witness agility, my employees being cognitive with technology, and flexibility to take on new innovations before adding an improved digital asset into my market to make a meaningful impact.