The impact of education with your information technology

Business is continuously changing. You are exposed to news, information that challenges current thinking, and methods of doing things. To keep up with the pace, you require knowledge of the marketplace and latest trends - this alone could keep you occupied full time in conferences! Added to this, is the explosive growth of the information technology industry and its learnings that need to be embraced. You could, therefore, take it for granted that education is paramount.

We believe there are two key areas you need to consider for your business to operate effectively and profitably - information technology and the people who use it. For this to happen, education and training need to be incorporated into your business approach. Remember that education creates an understanding of why we do things, whereas training equips people with the actual hands-on knowledge of how to conduct an activity.

Management`s responsibility is to keep a company on track, moving their strategies from the top through to their staff. They need to communicate - gaining staff buy-in to achieve their objectives and making them come to life. It`s the leveraging of today`s information technologies in order to realise their vision, that keep the management team occupied.

Two dimensions exist here - the management team moving the organisation to a more integrated unit. The second dimension is to pass an understanding of their objectives through to their staff. When a company introduces a new methodology, there is invariably a change of roles for key players with new systems and structures. Change management, a subject in its own right, is crucial at this point. Distilling knowledge to your employees - empowering them and educating them as to what the new systems and structures involve, negates their fear of the unknown, and creates a stronger sense of unity for the organisation.

Integrating Systems & People

Companies spend money upgrading their systems, introduce new concepts and more efficient methods of doing business - without paying sufficient attention to the people aspect. It`s important to know the difference when education or training is required. Again, education creates understanding, whereas training is the hands-on knowledge of how to conduct a task.

There is a varied selection of business software awaiting the customer in the marketplace. Add to it the hype surrounding the new buzz words of e-Commerce, CRM and outsourcing. Different industries have different requirements - shorter lead times, global communities, more competitive deals, changing barriers of entry. The software selection process considers various factors :

• The company`s core competency
• The company`s primary products
• Timeframes that need to be worked towards for implementation, results and changes in working processes
• Future growth of the company
• Collaboration with suppliers and clients
• Flexibility

Implementing a new system or an updated version of your current system is a long task. Remember that what you put in, is what you get out. It is imperative therefore, not to forget the basics of clean data, clearly understood parameters of what data is required and how it will be collected. Project plans need to be understood by all the players involved and then rolled out.

Your innovation for change - don`t outsource it

More importantly, running alongside this is accepting that you, the company is responsible for owning the innovation of changing your own business. The framework to roll out a project includes education to understanding why the changes are taking place, workshops of how to improve / create the changes and further consulting which sees the training of the staff who conduct the activities. In the workshop stage, companies need to remember there are two constraints - resources and money.

Of the two, resources is the more critical. For workshops to work effectively, senior management need to be involved in the process of change - guiding, giving insight, gaining understanding from their staff. This is often overlooked, due to the expense of committing senior management to a task of this nature.

Information technology is part of our lives. It continues to spread through our society. It has changed how we communicate, conduct our business, view our lives. However, let`s not forget people - who create, learn and inspire. Systems make it possible and people make it happen.