My shop experience and Technology

Almost a year ago I was tasked to manage a small shop. The shop was packed with  empty shelf and part of my task was to revive it. The experience of   managing a similar shop five years ago had taught me that injecting capital into business isn’t the solution cause the capital might find a lot of loopholes to disappear without the management being aware. Therefore experience taught me that injecting capital should be dictated by growth and managerial capacity.

This time having a second chance of managing shop I thought of new strategy that’s effective and efficient.  The strategic recipe included introduction of technology in workplace. My anticipation was that technology was going to simplify work, increase efficient and reducing cost hence giving me the competitive edge in the market. Unfortunate the results were not as expected due to the following reasons.

First, technology by itself cannot produce expected results without creating  favourable social environment. I expected staffs to respond positively with the introduction of new technologies. My expectation was based with the fact that their workload will be reduced  and their performance will increase. It was different. I took time to introduce and make them familiar with the technology but it was social resisted.

Further, Adopting technology without  having a learning program is like throwing a fist in the air. Learning is essential process in the introduction of technology. Admittedly we had a change in staff  during the introduction of the new technology which affected the implementation of Technology strategy. This affected  the learning process  and made the investment on technology waste. Because every new staff had to learn again  how to use the some devices and programs.

Lastly,  it’s not the superiority of technology that counts but the competence of staff to use the technology  is what matters.  A shop or any business that invests in technology and doesn’t invest in its people and social environment is most likely doomed to fail.  Scholars of  information systems  who have interest in #sociomateriality will be able  to dig in further to explain the relation that exists between technology and human factors