What Makes A Company High-Tech?

by Alai Caetano

Let’s face it – high-tech is in…everyone wants to be a high-tech company. Why? It’s good business—having a “reputation” as a high-tech company says you are relevant with the times, on the cutting edge of growth and progress, a place where people want to work and customers want to bring their business. It matters, but being high-tech means a company’s business technology is more than just its computers and devices. It is not only the tangible hardware and software but also the intangible elements that drive technology implementation and usage. It is just as important to consider how a company embraces and makes use of their tools to implement operating processes with the result of improved efficiency, output, and results on a day to day basis. Being high-tech is an evolution, a transformation, and one that if implemented well makes you a better company.

We all know that here in 2015, very few companies could function if every computing device were to disappear, so let us consider what else defines the technology equation. Ultimately the greatest factor as to whether a company is high-tech comes down to whether they have developed a technology culture. Starting with the CEO at the top, down to the lowest level function employee, does the company embrace the ever changing options that enhance, define, and revolutionize any and every given function in the workflow of the day to day operations? A technology culture embraces technology-driven change and not for the sake of change, but change that makes the company and its people better.

It is far too frequent that employees fear rather than embrace the tools that can make their processes more streamlined. The weakest link metaphor has a chance to manifest itself anywhere an employee has developed this fear of technology. It is up to the executive team and management to identify and strengthen these links, and bring up every participant that affects the company’s technology IQ. This can be done by investing in technology education. Training employees to strengthen their technology skills improves your company, and more importantly, your people.

As technology improves and evolves, the gap only widens. A strong technology culture is able to evolve with the new technology and adapt specific technology enhancements to fit their company’s unique needs. The greatest asset in becoming a high-tech company is the willingness to ask “How can we improve how we do things and are we willing to change?” This requires research and the fortitude to implement those methods. There is always a better way to do something, either available now or around the corner. If every employee participates in that discovery process, then a company thrives in a high-tech world and builds a technology company. So are you a high-tech company?

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