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Strategic resource management refers to the art and ability to managing and maintaining the capital present in an organization. It entails planning on how to acquire, store, use as well as dispose of the resources an organization uses in the course of doing business. The management is directed towards the achievement of the organizational goals. It helps to deal with quality, commitment, culture and matching resources available to the future needs of an organization. Information technology is one of the resources available for companies to use so as to improve their business. Used in the right way and at the right time, information technology can boost functions of an organization and even make them leading in their line of business.
Information technology is very important to businesses. The main advantages of incorporating technology in a business include increased efficiency. Organizations need to increase their level of efficiency, especially relating to utilization of the available resources. Increasing efficiency ensures they increase their productivity, which in turn increases their income and thus their profitability. Technology also helps to boost communication within and outside the organization. A company can learn the global trends in the world market as well as available resources that would help them improve their business.
Moreover, communication enables the company to communicate with their customers with a lot of ease. Customers communicate their needs, air their grievances as well as compliments towards company products and the company’s way of conducting business. Customer communication is mainly through social media where companies embrace sites such as Facebook and Twitter. Through technology, a company makes more sale as they have a large customer base available online from which they can sell their products.
Despite the many advantages associated with technology, there are also some disadvantages. They include the creation of unemployment. Some jobs become redundant when technology is embraced leading to people losing their jobs, thus increasing the unemployment rate. It also leads to lack of job security. Technology changes every day, thus necessitating employees to keep updating their knowledge. However, older employees are unable to adapt to changing technology faster than their younger counterparts. It leads to them losing their jobs in the long run, and they are replaced by the younger employees. It also leads to increased insecurity as hackers can obtain private information online.
A major disadvantage experienced by firms that fail to embrace technology fast is redundancy. Some organization produces products that were only used in the olden days before the invention of technology. A good example is a film which has now become redundant with the introduction of digital cameras. The digital cameras are also becoming redundant as companies have started manufacturing smartphones, tablets and iPads which have cameras and are multipurpose. Therefore, in the near future, the market for digital cameras will be no more as people will acquire phone and tablets that function better than digital cameras and have other functions.
Kodak is an example of a firm that adopted information too slowly in its business which led to its bankruptcy. It focuses on imaging products and is especially known for producing the best films as well as photographic papers. It had been the leading company in photography for a long time. However, due to their slowness in changing to digital photography, the company started struggling financially in the 1990s. At this time, technology was changing, and people were transitioning to filmless cameras as compared to film cameras which Kodak sold. They thus experienced a decline in sales and eventually by 2000they had to change with the new technology .
The organization had invented the digital camera in the 1970s. However, they sat on the technology as they feared that filmless cameras would ruin their core business which was in film cameras. By this time, most companies did not have the digital cameras. Had the company adopted the new technology then, and switched to the production of digital cameras, they would not have undergone the financial crises that they faced later in the 2000s. As the company sat on the technology, competitors such as Sony, Fuji, switched to digital photography. By early 2000s, Kodak was outshone by competitors and was no longer the leading organization in photography.
The main reasons why Kodak failed was their fear of adopting change . A change is as good as a rest. This quotation is used by most people to refer to the importance of bringing about change in the way of doing business. Kodak had the new technology available at their disposal early enough. Had they adopted the technology and shifted their resources to the production of the new product, they would still be the leading company in photography. It is thus very crucial for an organization to realize that adopting a new technology fast has lots of benefits as compared to the slow adoption of a new technology.
BlackBerry Limited is another company that has changed a lot due to technological influences. The company adopted technology very fast and at some point made a fatal mistake that led to its doom. The company was the pioneer in availing email services to mobiles and thus became popular among leaders, the rich as well as corporate. Up to early 2007, revenues of Blackberry Company increased, and it was considered the ultimate solution for users .
However, in the mid-2007, Apple Company introduced their iPhone, which was considered a competitor against the BlackBerry phones. IPhones were the first popular touchscreen phones. Despite the new technology by BlackBerry competitor, the company did not respond by producing a similar touchscreen phone. Rather, they ignored the invention and continued producing keyboard phones. IPhone turned out to be popular, and that was the beginning of the fall of BlackBerry .
The iPhone did not just attract the younger generation as Blackberry had initially thought. Rather, it attracted business leaders, corporates and the rich who were the core market of blackberry products. Blackberry’s market share, thus began to reduce. Soon, other manufacturers produced similar smartphones thus further subdividing the core market of the company. Despite this, BlackBerry maintained their status as a business email device, though they were losing on the other end.
In 2008, the company decided to manufacture a touchscreen device to compete with iPhone and other smartphones. People bought it as the company has maintained its status. However, due to their rush to compete with competitors, their touchscreen phones were not of excellent quality. People started complaining of the device’s functionality and by 2010 BlackBerry lost its largest market share to Apple and Google’s Android.
Choices have consequences. Black Berry Company knows this quotation better. They made the wrong decisions that led to the wrong technological adaptations and hence the failure of the company. Jim Balsillie, a co-CEO had the brilliant idea of shifting to instant messaging software. However, the idea was rejected by BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis and other executives like CEO Thorsten Heins. The founder emphasized in the production of keyboard devices, but CEO Heins and his executive did not heed his advice. Rather, they launched the touchscreen which had a disastrous outcome and later led to fall of the company .
We can thus conclude that though technology is very crucial and useful, there is a need to adopt it in moderation. Kodak was too slow to adopt the new technology and embrace it in its business, and this had a disastrous outcome. It declared bankruptcy, although currently it is trying to keep up with the new technology. BlackBerry, on the other hand, adopted the new technology so fast that it led to the fall of the company. They did not take the time to examine and learn exactly how the new technology worked so that they could embrace it adequately. Rather, they adopted it so fast with an aim to keep up with their competitors. It eventually led to the fall of the company. Organizations thus need to be careful while adopting a new technology. Adequate research should be conducted in advance.
REFERENCES
Mui, C. (2012, January 18). How Kodak Failed. Forbes Magazine.
Newman, R. (2012, January 19). 4 Lessons From Kodak's Comedown. US News.
Silcoff, S., Mcnish, J., & Ladurantaye, S. (2013, September 27). Inside the Fall of Blackberry: How the Smartphone Inventor Failed to Adapt. The Globe and Mail.
