Future Needs – Adapting to New Technologies

   The accelerated rate and changes in technology innovation deliver a new dynamic among organizations in the different sectors to stay competitive, even shifting their business models by adapting them to their customer's demands and needs (Sia et al., 2021). Therefore, organizations should adapt to new technologies even though this process can be challenging, slow, and sometimes not accepted by people. The goals of adapting and implementing new technology are increasing productivity, profitability, performance such as ROI (return of investment), cybersecurity posture, and staying competitive against other organizations (Bassiti, 2013).  

Organizations must determine the objectives they want to accomplish by choosing the right tool for their data. Data classification is different for each organization; therefore, the business should base its decision on the data's criticality, source (from and to the data is going, location), accessibility, and storage (data at rest or in transit) leveraging any history trends. The new technology should align with the organization's strategy considering the cost, maintenance, support, and performance, helping the organization achieve its goals and objectives and not deviate from them. 

Adapting and implementing a new technology requires an action plan detailing the existing products and services. Other strategies are data or systems migration that includes data classification and source and assigns a Project Manager to coordinate the different tasks and changes accordingly. In addition, it serves to have good knowledge and understanding of the network architecture and any other developing technology program that may overlap with the current implementation and generate metrics on how the new performance will impact the organization. Furthermore, review the organization procedures ensuring the legacy systems data integration into the new tool and the service level agreement (SLA) with the vendor is fully supported. Thus, investing in new technology has its ROI (return of investment value). The equation is value = benefits - costs for the products and services provided internally and supporting the organization that can do the deliverables on time to the customers on what they want (Bennett, 2020). 

Organizations need to include a performance management process to evaluate the objectives and efficiency of the existing resources and tools by using key performance indicators (KPIs), ensuring the all the efforts are customized to fit the organization's strategy and objectives. KPIs are important because they provide feedback in the decision-making process at all levels, including operational or tactical. Any deviation of the initial plan will be contested and identified based on the KPIs metrics, and any correction can be applied (Marcu et al., 2019). 

Organizations favoring innovation would find support among employees facilitating a practical creation when the goals and objectives are clearly defined. Including employees in the onboarding process of implementing the new technology shows that organizations increase productivity and profitability. Communication is an essential key across an organization. Leadership should encourage communication across the stakeholders of upcoming new technological implementation (West & Anderson, 1996).  

 In addition, inviting and asking employees about their opinions enhance their morale. Most likely, the employees would be engaged to the team's goals and be on board against any opposition. On the other hand, if there is no communication, the organization generally faces several problems with the employees, reducing productivity and increasing frustration because they do not understand what to accomplish (Crossan & Apaydin, 2010; Knight, 2015).

Technology innovation has become critical to many organizations as part of their cybersecurity posture. Organizations within the public and private sectors have a common objective – assuring trust among their customers, suppliers, contractors, and stakeholders with their information and ensuring that their data's confidentiality and integrity are always protected and available when needed. No organization wants to be tomorrow's headline news victim of a cyber-attack (Bennett, 2020). 

Risks and vulnerabilities need to be identified before implementing new technology to establish a baseline on mitigating the issue(s). After implementing the latest technology, the organization needs to check for any vulnerability and work diligently on the mitigation steps. Cyber risk has become an important subject due to the increased cyber-attacks resulting in data loss and business disruption (Nie et al., 2020). As per the PwC Global Economic Crime Report, cybercrime affected 31 percent of organizations in which cyberattacks become more sophisticated and better opportunities of exploiting any vulnerability or security weakness found by the threat actors during the cyberattacks (Krishan, 2018). Cybercrime victims lose an average cost of $142 per attack, adding a total loss of $172 billion worldwide, not including the time and resources the victims spend on recovering and dealing with the aftermath (Farahbod et al., 2020).

Protecting an organization's cybersecurity requires technology and processes in place. First, preventing any unwanted access or intrusion into the network, equipment or facilities, or documents, the data storage sensitivity is identified. Adding the necessary protection keeps these sensitive details such as intellectual possession, financial records, personal information, or some other records category securely and away from any adverse impacts on unwanted entry or disclosure, maybe a significant part of this database. Then, the organization's due diligence is to determine the information management controls and processes to apply and administer for their systems' protection, prevention, and mitigation (Singh & Kumar, 2020).

Adapting and implementing new technology enhances an organization's cybersecurity posture and should be included in the budgeting, planning, and policy implementation (Shaud, 2017).  Regardless of the organization's business line, adapting and implementing new technology should be completed in different phases: planning, organization, management, training, communication. The new tool should be aligned with the latest technology, optimizing, and protecting the organization's network, data, and information. In addition, the organization should provide training to all employees involved in the use of the new technology to make sure it would be used appropriately (Marcu et al., 2019).

Source:

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