Why is the tech niche so slow to pick up & use its own technology?

tech niche slow to pick up its own technology 2015

tech niche slow to pick up its own technology 2015When you think about the most talked about concepts in tech at the moment you will probably think of cloud computing and big data – everyone in the tech niche is talking about these two things at the moment and in particular how they can help the enterprise in terms of both functionality and business progression.

Cloud Computing

Cloud computing is the idea of harnessing powerful computers that are housed within a data center and typically adopted by the enterprise under a leasing or rental basis. The key concept behind cloud computing as far as the enterprise is concerned is in the fact that the infrastructure is largely software defined and can be scaled up seamlessly making the entire system fare more flexible and cost effective.

The big advantage that cloud computing offers to the enterprise, aside from cost and efficiency, is the fact that it can be accessed from any location and almost any device – the cloud is taking IT away from the traditional on premise model and moving it to a centrally stored and always connected environment.

This new way of working really came as an answer to a real world problem and in order to meet the changing demands of the enterprise in terms of how businesses and employees worked and the fact that business is now more frequently done whilst on the move and from locations all over the world rather than just at a fixed office location.

Big data and analytics

Big data is the concept of being able to handle extremely large datasets and also being able to extrapolate useful information from that data using advanced analytics and machine learning techniques.

Big data has really come about as a result of computers now being powerful enough to find the answers to almost any question so long as there is data available that pertains to that question.

The advantage of this technology to the enterprise is that every aspect of the business can be constantly analysed and improved. There is no getting away from the truth when it comes to business data – if an area of the business is underperforming then grab all of the data and the computer will tell you what is wrong.

tech industry slow to use its own tech 2015Slow take up of cloud computing and big data in the technology sector

These two technologies have a vast array of potential uses and benefits for businesses of all sizes but one of the most striking advantages is the flexibility that the technologies allow – cloud computing in terms of working environment and big data analytics in terms of ensuring the implementation of effective systems.

Cloud computing in particular should really be seeing a move away from the typical office environment into more distributed working scenarios where employees and management don’t necessarily need to be based in the same office but rather can work from anywhere in the world. Cloud computing means than in terms of IT everyone can work in exactly the same way as if they were sitting in the same office – we can have the same level of collaboration, monitoring and centralised management.

The advantages of working in this way are almost endless but the main one centres around flexibility – within this type of working environment it doesn’t matter where you are in the world you can still work and this is very fitting in a world where international business is almost a standard practice. What’s more this way of working means that staff can be recruited from anywhere in the world, physical location no longer being a barrier.

These advantages are extremely well suited to the tech niche where many job roles do not require a physical location – such as system administration, programming, digital design and data analysis – and more so with these specialist job roles the wider the recruitment net the better.

Some may argue that distributed working environments make it harder to manage staff and their productivity but this is really where big data and analytics come into play – there is no longer a need to have a manager standing over the shoulder of an employee to make sure the work is getting done as this information can be made immediately apparent by analysing employee input and business data on an ongoing basis – with this information productivity can easily be measured and monitored.

Despite all of this it strikes me as strange that whilst influencers are all pushing these new technologies and how they can be so beneficial to the enterprise their take up is actually very lacking in the technology niche itself.

The majority of tech recruiters still seem to be pushing almost exclusively office based positions and there are very few location independent roles being promoted within tech.

Perhaps it is time that the tech niche started using these technologies internally and producing real world case studies of their effectiveness and in turn this may help their adoption within the wider enterprise.