There are many different types of technologies that local businesses can invest in but are often not used correctly or are not suited to the market.
So says Brad Willson, MD of Global Access, who believes there is still place for cutting-edge technologies in the South African market.
"The key is to make sure it's the correct technology to meet the desired objectives and deliverables."
According to Willson, the type of technologies on offer are still new to South African consumers and businesses should remember that with clever content, they will quickly yield positive results and quickly achieve the desired return on investment.
"In our business, we have seen increase in demand across our varying business units and these include IPTV, digital signage, over-the-top services, and queue management. There is also a demand for big data and analytics," he says.
Quintis Venter, senior software engineer at ThoughtWorks, says businesses must consider the adoption of new technology trends such as cloud computing to augment their capabilities and social media to test market appetite for new products and services.
According to Venter, cloud computing and big data are two trends that cannot be seen in isolation, and businesses are perfectly placed to leverage the benefits of these comparatively new developments in technology delivery.
"They can do so by establishing their own, secure cloud computing infrastructure that eliminates the need for discrete computing power and storage capabilities," he says.
Willson believes technology should work for the business and it should ensure the business achieves its specific objectives.
"Currently, in our environment we have seen that the main drivers of technology solutions is to improve communication, provide training, drive-specific targets, process improvement and increase marketing and sales," he explains.
"All of these platforms are underpinned with specific return on investment and return on objective strategies and clear deliverables and measurability."
He points out there are a number of challenges companies face when implementing a new solution in an organisation.
The first is people don't like change and it's difficult to have staff or members of the public buy in and embrace the technology instead of discarding it. Once you have buy-in, the technology will more often than not succeed, he adds.
"Second is allowing the technology to work for staff and changing the procedures to include the technology. Thirdly, finding the budget without having tested or proved the technology or concept can be a challenge.
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