Benefits of Incorporating Digital Technologies in Workplace
The organisations are incorporating digital technologies in a rapid pace, in order to enhance the innovative features of the organisation. Digital technologies have been known to provide greater visibility and clarity regarding the performances of the employees in the company. The main purpose of the digitalisation is to increase the overall productivity rate of the company by incorporating the advance technologies. The various types of technologies allow the company to store important data and information digitally, as well as access the beneficial information at any given point of time. Therefore, in order to increase the productivity and enhance the performance quality, the organisations are incorporating various types of technologies in the company operations. In addition, the digital technologies are also efficient in terms of monitoring the progress of the employee individual performances, which might not be possible manually (Vial 2021). Digital technologies offer better communication and collaboration tools, that increases employee engagements within the company. Therefore, it can be observed that there are several benefits of incorporating digital technologies in the company. The main purpose of this assignment is to evaluate the importance of digital technologies in the workplace, along with various technological factors used in the workplace. Relevant evidences of real companies will also be provided in order to maintain the reliability of the report.
Managing the business operations is considered to be a complicated and difficult process, because there are multiple aspects and departments of a business. In order to control the various types of business operations as well as the employees, organisation uses different types of technologies. One of the important parts of the company operations is the storage of confidential data and information. The amount of data that is created by the organisation per day, is impossible to count manually, especially if it is a large-scale company. Documents, customer transactions, spreadsheets, forms and many mores are created by the organisations on a daily basis, which needs proper storage space. Therefore, companies incorporate cloud systems, which is a digital storage facility for every type of documents (Ruppert et al. 2018). One of the positive aspects of this feature is that it can be accessed through any digital devices as per the convenience of the companies. For example, large scale companies like Netflix, or Pinterest, that uses cloud database in order to store their information. This type of companies is also cloud data provider, as they offer digital services to the customers.
Networking and collaborating is another important factor for the companies, because it helps in sustaining in the market for a long term. Customer feedbacks are often used to monitor the progress of the customer satisfaction, and currently the feedbacks are mainly gathered through digital facilities. Previously companies used to conduct surveys in order to understand the demand of the customers. Digital technologies are more cost effective as well as time effective, which helps the company to minimise their manual efforts and the usage of resources (Lindgren et al. 2019). Therefore, multiple companies have started using the Chatbot technologies, in order to enhance the communication between the customers and the organisation. For example, companies like Amazon or Nike digital websites utilises chatbots in order to directly communicate with the customers. This provides the company an opportunity to allow two-way communication between them and the customers, which also increase transparency and value of the brand image.
Types of Digital Technologies in Workplace
Apart from these the companies also utilises digital technologies in terms of work management, protection of the cloud database information with cybersecurity, data analytics and many other factors. Implementing technology in every aspect of the business can be beneficial for increasing the innovative effectiveness of the company (Flores, Xu and Lu 2020). Some of the modern-day technologies that have become common to incorporate in the company organisations is Internet of Things (IoT), and the Artificial Intelligence (AI). These types of technologies help the company to complete each operation within a short period of time, also with a good quality.
The global pandemic scenario has shifted the dynamics of company operations, influenced the digital technology growth (Taherdoost 2018). In order to prevent the outbreak of corona virus, governments-imposed restrictions on the companies, as a result, several companies were temporarily shut due to the lack of appropriate commodities. It became difficult for the companies to sustain in the market, as the financial and revenue rate declined due to closed operations along with the lack of customer issues (de Lucas Ancillo, del Val Núñez and Gavrila 2021). One of the important trends started during the COVID 19 period among the companies, which is the work from home facilities. In order to stay competent in the market, and maintaining the financial stability, companies started working from home structures, which allowed the employees to continue their respective operations from the home. This benefited the companies because, the operations flows allowed them to continue with their productivity and meeting the customer demands. Therefore, adaptation of digital technologies became extremely important for the companies. Utilisation of advanced technologies like AI, became important for continuing operations (Reuschke and Felstead 2020).
One of the important factors is that, the global pandemic scenario shifted the customer purchasing focus to the online businesses, as online businesses offer delivery of the product services. Therefore, usage of technologies in terms of improving the logistics and delivery condition also increased at a rapid pace. For example, the online stores values of Amazon increased up to 66 billion US dollars especially after the COVID 19 pandemic situation (Kaushik and Guleria 2020). According to many experts, these changes were long term, and the effect of online business is going to stay in the market for a long time. Therefore, it is important for the businesses to focus on the technological implementation, for enhancement of the overall business. In addition, COVID 19 pandemic scenario has increased the urge among the organisations to use the virtual reality set up, in order to prevent any types of social contact. The meetings, conferences or any other workshops are conducted with the video calling facilities, that helps in continuing the important decision-making functions in the organisation. For example, it can be observed that the use of AIs, such as Google assistant, Siri or Alexa has increased among the employees (Savi? 2020). The main reason behind this circumstance is that, it reduces the manual efforts as well as chances of the social contacts. Therefore, it can be considered that the sudden restrictions have bound the companies to keeping up with the operations in new methods, and the advanced technologies are beneficial in terms of helping the company, which has increased the digital technology usage in the organisations.
Impact of COVID-19 on Digital Technologies
All individuals have grown accustomed with the digital technologies in every aspect of life. In terms of an organisation, from data storage to customer engagement, companies include different types of digital technologies to complete the operations. Digital technologies have several benefits which are discussed below:
Communication level: One of the commonly used digital technology facility is the internet, which is known for its connectivity speed. As the internet is accessible to all at any time, the companies use it to attract large base of customers. Another important factor of the digital connectivity is the social media. According to the reports, in 2020, approximately 49% of the global population joined social media which is increasing gradually (Van der Burg, Bogaardt and Wolfert 2019). It indicates that the digital technologies have enhanced the connectivity among the individuals as well as the companies, especially in the era of global pandemic situation.
Automation: This is the kind of technology, that reduces the additional workload pressure from the workers (Kraus et al. 2018). The automation technologies help in storing data, or offering any services automatically, without any kind of manual help. Therefore, it also increases the productivity rate, which positively reflects on the overall revenue bottom-line of the company (Bottani and Vignali 2019).
Learning opportunities: the technological growth has enhanced the learning opportunities for the individuals. For example, if a company implements AI technologies, the employees can take help from the AI features at any point of time in order increase their knowledge regarding certain factors (Dienlin and Johannes 2022). In terms of training procedure, the companies can incorporate online job training facilities, which is beneficial in terms of developing skills of the employees.
Versatile working structure: With the help of digital technologies, the companies have opted for different methods for working, such as remote working facilities. It allows the company to maintain the productivity pace of the company, even in the difficult times like COVID 19 situation. Therefore, it can be stated that the company uses the digital facilities to prevent any financial or situational crisis from occurring in the company.
Better monitoring: Digital technologies have also improved the nature of the employee monitoring tools. There are several digital tools like, Teramind, Controlio, InterGuard, SentryPC and many more, which frequently monitors the performance progress of the employees.
Apart from the beneficial factors, the digital technologies raise some of the serious concerns among the organisations, which are discussed below:
Job insecurity: The digital facilities has reduced several manual efforts; therefore, the organisations do not need labour forces in order to complete those tasks. It has therefore increased the job insecurity among many individuals (Kerin and Pham 2019). In addition, the AI facilities has also reduced manual functions for the individuals, for which they do not need to put manual effort.
Privacy concerns: This has become a major concern for several companies, as the chances of data breach has increased. The increased accessibility of cloud database information has raised privacy concerns, as there are chances of confidential data and information leak. Although the data and information are protected with user identities and passwords, it does not take long time for cyber criminals to break the codes and conduct data theft (Van Dijk 2020). In addition, criminals can access to the company data base and change the data, which is also known as fraud offences. Therefore, protection of the digital data storage system has become a genuine concern for the organisations.
Conclusion
Work overload: The remote working facilities are usually flexible and the individuals can perform their operations through digital facilities at any point of time. This increases the workload and stress among the employees, as there is no routine or set structure for the tasks (Vial 2021). The company authorities also ask favour regarding works to the employees, who are taking the remote working facilities, and are ultimately increasing the workload pressure among the employees.
Plagiarism and copyright: Digital platforms, makes it easy for the criminals to copy and use some of the information which are copyrighted. Plagiarism is a serious crime, in which one entity copies every important data and information from other entities with the help of digital channels, which are also considered as a serious criminal offense.
Conclusion
It can be concluded from the overall discussion that; the digital technologies have enhanced the various aspects of company operations. The technological facilities can be applied to various types of aspects in the organisations based on the requirements. In terms of work management, data storage, communication and many more factors, the digital technologies seem to reduce the manual effort of the companies. It also helps the companies to not miss out on any small yet important data, through technological factors. It has been observed that the COVID 19 pandemic situation has hiked up the usage of digital technologies in the organisation. Due to start the remote working facilities, all companies have started using the digital facilities such as online videos, or cloud database, so that employees can access to company data from anywhere, and also contact with company authorities. However, there are both positive and negative factors of the digital technologies. The beneficial factor is that, it increases the communication or connectivity levels, as well as increases the learning opportunities for the employees. However, there are cybercrime threats, which has increased due to the digital accessibility. The digital crime offences can be reduced using appropriate safeguard policies in the organisation.
References
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