The driving force behind technological advances

It’s no secret that for a business to survive and grow it needs to be constantly changing, improving, and staying relevant, if not one step ahead, of the game. In current day and age, this is more critical than ever. In a world where unprecedented challenges are presenting themselves on a daily basis, a business needs to be able to absorb information, assess the best plan of action, and adapt.

History has proven time and time again that mistakes will be made. This may be inevitable, but if the same mistake is made over and over and no lessons are learned, or a high profile mistake is duplicated by another organisation later down the line, what knowledge is being gained? The simple answer is nothing, and this is when a business starts to fail.

Over the last few decades, there have been countless examples where mistakes have been made, costly mistakes both financially and to human lives. Such examples include a failed warehouse automation system that cost a US drug wholesaler company $100 million, which filed for bankruptcy within a few months after implementation. Another example is a world class leader in the aerospace industry that released a new model of plane, which catastrophically and tragically claimed lives of hundreds of people when it’s onboard state of the art systems failed, combined with failing to provide training on the brand new system.

These mistakes have led to groundbreaking changes being implemented to ensure they are not repeated, but surely there is another way to assure advancements are made. Why just wait for an unfortunate mistake to highlight an issue, when the proactive approach is to constantly push the boundaries from within the organisation, find the flaws that need improvements, and think outside the box for those ‘what if’ moments.

The alternative driving force behind technological advances can come from customers. They are the end user, the people who will have maximum exposure, and it is time to consider what improvements they will benefit from. The problem is that these suggestions and ideas never find their way back to the company and, in actual fact, occasionally the company leaders might think think they know the direction in which to proceed, but in actual fact, they introduce changes that hinder the end user.

An example of where a company introduced new features that the customer didn’t need or want includes a widely used search engine that tried to entice users into joining its new social network. However, this was a complete flop because it didn’t appeal to the general public enough to rival larger, more well-established social network platforms. Another example is a giant within the online Retail sector trying its hand at launching a mobile phone smart device. Customers may have shown interest in the product if the price hadn’t been set so steep. Again this is a classic example of not completing market research or asking for the customerss opinions.

Here at Keynetics, we value our customers’ feedback and opinions, and actively encourage them to raise suggestions with us. We constantly push the boundaries in developing and improving our products and systems, tailored around what the customer is asking for. Keynetics consciously drives technological advances from within our own business, combined with highly valued customer feedback.