At a recent conference I attended, a colleague spoke of an emerging trend that often accompanies new technologies, it’s called Disruptive Technologies. The topic came up a number of times and I was intrigued, so I began to explore. I found an article titled, The Innovator’s Dilemma. The author, Clayton Christensen, observes that “disruptive technologies involve no new technologies; rather, they consist of components built around proven technologies and put together in a novel product that offers the customer a set of attributes never before available”. Regardless of whether it’s new, or newly packaged, it is important to understand the business implications and the impact they can have on your market. For example…

Japanese digital watches dramatically changed the market landscape and decreased the substantial advantage that Swiss watch manufacturers once enjoyed

Computer based cash registers captured 90 percent of the market within five years, leaving electro-mechanical cash registers at an extreme market disadvantage

More than a million consumers have discovered VoIP-voice over Internet protocol-to make local and long-distance calls over the Internet at a substantial cost savings. Verizon and MCI phone home and take note.

Because these technologies can render obsolete the way things were done, or displace existing products and services, history has many such examples of companies that failed to grasp the opportunities offered. I believe that somewhere along the way, someone forgot to mention that;

Disruptive Technologies can only be “disruptive” if we resist them.

If a company fails to grasp the implications of a technology and is left with a strategic disadvantage, does that mean that the technology can be termed “disruptive”? Or has the computer industry invented another term designed to ease the damage done to the egos of those who failed to fully realize the business implications of a technology.

To survive, we must be on the lookout for these technologies and be ready to use them ahead of our competition. We must constantly assess our business vision and our competitive markets, and examine our technology strategies for addressing both.

So what are a few of these technologies, and what impact can they have on our business?

I think that the first one, the one on everyone’s mind would have to be the Internet. This allows businesses to operate in “ultra real time” mode. We can know up to the second what’s going in our business. I’m sorry, but I don’t see that as disruptive.

A few other examples that come to mind are:

Ubiquitous Bandwidth – this means that anywhere, anytime digital services will become commonplace.

Knowledge Discovery and Exploitation – Corporate knowledge will become a tangible asset; decision making will be faster and more informed.

Digital Money and Electronic Micro payments – Programmable currency will reshape how we buy and sell.

Miniaturization – Microscopic machines will revolutionize our lives and the way work is done

Absolutely, these technologies can disrupt our businesses and our lives – if we allow them. Call me an optimist if you wish, and perhaps I stand alone on this one, but whenever I hear the term “Disruptive Technologies”, I prefer to think, “Opportunity Technologies”.

By David Beck, CPA.CITP

http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbeckcpa

Customer relationship management or CRM is a corporate level strategy which focuses on creating and maintaining lasting relationships with its customers. Although there are several commercial CRM software packages on the market which support a CRM strategy, it is not a technology itself. Rather, philosophy and process which places emphasis on the customer.

A successful CRM strategy cannot be implemented by simply installing and integrating a software package and will not happen over night. Changes must occur at all levels including policies and processes.

To be effective, the CRM process needs to be integrated end-to-end across marketing, sales, and customer service. A good CRM software application program needs to:

• Identify customer success factors
• Create a customer-based culture
• Adopt customer-based measures
• Develop an end-to-end process to serve customers
• Recommend what questions to ask to help a customer solve a problem
• Recommend what to tell a customer with a complaint about a purchase
• Track all aspects of selling to customers and prospects.
• Track all aspects of customer support.
• Serve as a data repository to facilitate analysis for better decision making.

When setting up a CRM strategy and process, a company it might first want to identify what aspects of CRM are relevant to its business then look for a software application that over the required functionality.

By David Beck, CPA.CITP

http://www.linkedin.com/in/davidbeckcpa