Technology and business complexity

While conducting reviews of business processes and underlying IT applications, I have often come across a common refrain from the end users that technology, while acknowledged as being helpful in theory, in practice has added a lot of complexity to their day to day activities. Furthermore, in many of these instances, this complexity has proved to be detrimental to the end user / customer experience.

This apparent paradox of technology being helpful as well a pain area due to the added complexity is the subject of a good article penned by Ron Ashkenas. It explains what decision makers need to think of before investing in a new technology in order to avoid any such pitfalls later.

http://blogs.hbr.org/2013/12/to-use-technology-effectively-ask-the-tough-questions/?utm_source=Socialflow&utm_medium=Tweet&utm_campaign=Socialflow