With all the latest developments in technology, it may seem like new advancements in tech are launching every day, and the last company to adopt could end up behind. However, that’s far from the truth.
Not every new tech is designed to suit your company’s needs. In fact, some new tech developments may actually waste your company’s money and time, without much gain to be had at all.
So, how can you tell if a new tech feature, app or other development is the right fit for your company? How can you decide if it will be a boon or a bust? To help you gain some industry insight regarding this question, seven members of Forbes Technology Council share their advice on adopting new tech. Here’s what they said:
1. Assess Community Support
It’s essential that technology has the support of a broad-based community. Open source is preferred, partly because open-source projects tend to have strong community support. But a critical mass of practitioners who are using, troubleshooting and hopefully maintaining the project is a guarantee that it will be usable, and that help will be available when needed. – Paul Keister,Horoscope.com, Inc.
2. Focus On Your Clients
Our focus is always on our clients. A technology must improve our ability to deliver high return on investment for our clients. We tend to eschew “sexy” tech in favor of technology that can deliver. Our clients are typically in the operations management space and they favor ugly and practical above sexy and useless. – Chris Farkas, eAlchemy
3. Consider Consequences
In healthcare, we have to always think not just about the possibilities that a technology might bring, but also fully think through the ways that it might do harm through unintended consequences. Artificial intelligence is a prime example of a technology that could dramatically improve care, but inappropriately implemented could cause harm. – Sean Glass, Advantia Health