Lastly I’ve heard word technology (don’t mess with technique) in “unusual” context. Entrepreneur told, that there is specific technology for hiring, and whole HR itself. Other mentioned, that honesty is a technology… We’ve also talked about Theory of Constrains, and possibility to use it in different areas of business: operations/production; finance; sales… and it was also called “technology”.
So what is “technology”? Technology (gr. technē+logos) is a field of technique dealing with the development and implementation of processes for the production or processing of raw materials, semi-finished products and products into components, elements and finished products. While technique (old gr. τέχνη, technē “art, craft, craftsmanship, skill”) – is a field of human activity that uses knowledge to produce products and cause phenomena that do not occur naturally in nature. It is also a learned and practiced ability to perform certain actions.
There are technologies and techniques (T&T), which might be used in different fields of business. Ones are not objectively better than others, but may suit better to particular needs. Knowing particular T&T will provide you possibility to use them in different fields, and optimise outcome based on those.
Not obvious T&Ts.
Honesty and Theft – those two technologies might be used to acquire goods in sales. First one will lead to longterm benefits, but growth might be low on the beginning. Second one may give much more benefits on the beginning, but will not provide recurrent revenue and coming back customers. If we put aside moral aspects, both technologies are effective in their specific environments. It’s hard to be thief in family business… at the same time it’s almost impossible to be honest in politics.
There are many technologies, which may use specific techniques to drive outcome. What is great about T&Ts those might be used in very different fields, and might lead to similar results. One, who will be able to adopt technology to new field of usage will gain competitive advantage.
Cloud technology was once adopted in IT and it was some kind of revolution… While this technology was already widely known and used in other fields like transportation:
To provide specific technology in your area may have some pre-requirements. But actually it should not disappoint you, as you may already understand those requirements based on experience in other area.
I’ve used virtualization technology in real estates on two stages:
- Containers – this is how Virtual Office works – I have a huge number of companies renting office in my facility. I provide them needed resources (reception desk). They share resources, but totally unaware of other tenants. Sharing resources is done without tenant control. Very scalable – you should have 1 receptionist for ~700 tenants.
- VMs with physical resource ownership – I rent apartments for people who try to earn for their own flat. They have some resources for their own use exclusively (bedrooms), but also commonly shared resources (bathroom). This type of business is much less scalable than the first one – you should have 1 bathroom for ~5 tenants.
If you take over advantage of specific technology – you may make a marketplace for such technology, using other technology (shared economy). For example Uber made such market place for next level taxi democratisation. Amazon did it in retail.
If would be nice to find technology (main and possible alternatives) for main business processes, like: sales, operations, marketing, finance, logistics, r&d… and turn-around companies just buy adopting proper technologies to their needs and scale.