Introduction
Do you have an Apple product at
home? No, I don’t mean the fruit! I mean products like an iPhone by Apple that
lets you send text messages, e-mails, make phone calls, and is our alarm clock,
reminder, dictionary, newspaper, television, and many more all coalesced into one device.
Aren’t you surprise? There is no time to waste. As our business grows, we have to stay one
step ahead of the competition and catch up with technology as it is advancing
fast. As a matter of fact, what we learn
in college and universities will eventually expire by the time we
graduate. As we are living in the
business world, we will have to keep ourselves up to date with the most recent
technologies available and make good use of them. Technology over the years had benefit us to
stay ahead with ease; but it is we who are using these technology that have
difficulty keeping up.
Have you ever imagined what will the
world be like without technology? In the modern era, technology had brought
consumers with so much comfort in their daily lives. Technology is truly an investment because it
is very efficient, hassle-free, and saves up lots of space because everything
is shrinking in size with the presence of Nanotechnology. Ten and thousands of products were actually
invented in the 21st century itself.
These technologies affect the business world tremendously from all aspects
in various industries. With advancement
as fast as lightning, businesses worldwide would have to adapt and change their
infrastructure in order to keep up. For
instance, many Airlines started using online check in system and we are able to
see many self-service payment counters in grocery stores like Safeway. Business should also send their workers for
training more frequently to update them on the new features of a certain
program. Once the workers had learnt
those skills, the productivity of the business will surely boost the company’s
profit as technology is so call ‘a shortcut to success’.
Without any further ado, none of the
following will eventually happen without the presence of the God of technology
world – the Internet. Internet is like oxygen
of the technological world, we cannot see it but it is what keeping them
connected and to stay function. Internet
is that important and without Internet connection, a country will surely be
bankrupt. Due to the powerful need of Internet
to run a country and businesses, there are presences of the Internet war. A war without nuclear, and weapons but is
able to damage a country’s economy badly.
Hackers of foreign countries could break highly secured codes and
firewalls to shut off power lines like what happened in Brazil in 2007 in which
Rio was in darkness for two days (Perera).
In a business perspective, the businesses in Brazil are actually shut
down for 48 hours. They are not able to
connect to any other countries and no income will be generated in which caused
a downfall in their economy at that time.
In this particular paper, I will be
introducing some very interesting technological advancement that enhanced the
business world. I will focus in some
common business industries and focus my research on them. Technological advancement do result in pros
and cons in each different industry regarding how technology effects on
them. In most cases, I will be comparing
the pros and cons of technology affecting the industries listed. Will the future technology effects the
working environment or will it benefit the society? Let’s take a look in the
research below.
Business
Communications
“The number of Americans working from
home has soared 41% in the last decade (Jane Fox).” The presence of these advanced technologies
have a lot of benefits to the society today.
Many individual businesspersons use the opportunity to work from home
through the Internet. Applications
invented such as Skype or FaceTime allows the individual to connect and set up
conference calls from any part of the world.
This application is free for all users as long as there is presence of
the Internet. This is very convenient
and helps save traveling time and costs in which will be very expensive.
Working from home benefits a family
in many ways in which parents are able to keep an eye on their children and spend
more time with them. From the pie chart
below, we are able to view the benefits of working from home. For instance, my aunt works from home daily
for a logistics company and have conference calls everyday from several different
countries like China, Germany, Hong Kong to list a few. Self-discipline in the other hand is strongly
needed to work from home as technology cannot make you discipline. The survey was done by Microsoft Whitepapers,
Work without Walls and is summarized in the chart below (Kruse).
Figure 1: How is
working from home benefits the employees (Kruse).
With such convenience and beneficial,
international connections and communications in business are not hard to bond
at all. Businessperson is able to have
connection with their international partners through a computer screen and
e-mails to stay connected and work anywhere they want to. Paychecks are also not to be worried as
e-banking is now all over the world.
Even working from home with an international country, the money will be
transferred to your account in days and we need not to worry if the money will
be transferred by going in and out the bank.
Moreover, with the ease of reach of the Internet, businesses and
entrepreneurs are able to advertise about their businesses with ease. They will not have to hire some professionals
to help them create and ad but to advertise them via social networks or
craigslist and many other websites available.
Factory
Industries
Robotics has been part of the most
successful technological advancement in the 21st century. Many factories had actually replaced workers
with machines that are able to produce more goods in a more efficient
time. Assembly lines in many factories
had evolved from 90% human labor and 10% robotics to 10% human labor and 90%
robotics. This occurrence had effected
many structural unemployment and our caused our economy to be unstable. Developing and developed countries slowly get
rid of factory assembly lines workers due to the benefits technology had
brought into production. With this being
said, factories owners are very wealthy as the products are produced more
efficiently in a shorter amount of time; the workers in the other hand still
have low wages. Some workers will then
resign as they feel that it I unfair to work for such low wages. Those jobs are
then pushed to another foreign country, mostly in developing and underdeveloped
countries for cheaper labor prices (Bade).
Child labor is a big issue currently as it is ethically wrong and their
wages are very low.
Figure 2: Evolution
of an assembly line of a car factory.
Factories in the past years have
boost the amount of products produced exponentially with the help of
technological advancement. According to
Bade and Parkin, after the recession in 2008, the world economy boost up again
and factory industries are the first industry that is stable throughout the
recession because they mainly produce goods that we need to survive
(Bade). Even though robotics had taken
many workers’ place in the factory, a healthy economy needs to consist of 5%
unemployment rate. Unfortunately, people
have to be unemployed to have a healthy economy. Without technological advancement, the world
would be in scarcity and the demand would be always be higher than its supply
which may be a disaster as people will be aggressive and fight for what they
need and want. Thankfully, technology
had created enough goods for everyone within a short amount of time to keep the
society in good standing.
Health Industry
Technology growth made healthcare
very easy and fast to many people in the society now. With
such advanced technology, many discoveries could be made and many lives would
be saved. Better medical equipment are
produced throughout the century and they are now more high tech in which some
are even able to scan your whole body and give you a detailed report just about
anything. Just to name one, medical
equipment such as the CT scan is able to scan a patient’s anatomy, tumors and
fractures without having any tactile to the patient’s body. Other than fancy modern medical “marvels”, according
to an article from Forbes, there are five ways that technology is transforming
health care today (Lee):
·
Crunching
data to offer a better diagnosis and treatment
·
Helping
doctors communicate with patients
·
Linking
doctors with doctors
·
Connecting
doctors and patients
·
Helping
patients stay healthy
Figure 3: A CT Scan
and the results.
Other than creating medical
equipment, with the help of technology in the health industry also enhances
doctors’ and scientists’ in their research process. It enables researchers to look into more
detailed information in objects that are a thousand times smaller then what we
can see through our naked eyes. The
cloning technology is also becoming more successful in the sense that it is
able to clone another part of our human organ to perform an organ
transplant. The first animal
successfully cloned in the world was Dolly the sheep in which died after 8
years since it was created in 1997 (Wade).
After that experiment, scientist began to clone human body parts with
animals DNA to have spare organs to help save more live during organ
failures. Furthermore, pigs’ hearts are
also used as substitute to replace a failed human’s heart thanks to technology;
as scientist had found and made some biological changes in genes of the pigs to
have more similar genes with a human in order for the pig’s hear to function
properly in the human’s body and to prevent rejection. Some experiments are already successfully
performed such as
 |
growing human ears onto a mouse. Scientist also believes that in the future,
they are able to grow artificial livers on animals to be used on humans for any
organ failures instead of having to find an organ donor (Artificial).
Agricultural
Industry
Do you remember the days when your
grandmother told you that their family and ancestors worked in the paddy field
handpicking the ripen grains and then hand sifting the grains to get rid o any
unwanted particles? Those are no longer needed at all. Machines are now able to that all in one go
in split seconds. Thanks to technology
again, the grain and wheat production has grown rapidly since the
millennium. It helps farmers in so many
ways in which they are able to have more crops then they used to have. As time passes, most farmers around the world
had sifted themselves from traditional farming to modern farming (Motes). Modern farming, according to Dr. William is
defined as:
“In modern agricultural systems farmers
believe they have much more central roles and are eager to apply technology and
information to control most components of the system, a very different view
from that of traditional farmers. In contrast to the isolation inherent in
traditional arrangements, modern agriculture tends to see its success as
dependent on linkages—access to resources, technology, management, investment,
markets and supportive government policies (Motes).”
Whereas
in traditional farming, Dr. Williams said that it is mostly farmed using
natural resources such as rainfall, hand pick, animals used to plow land, and
natural fertilizers. It is definitely
healthier but it is not enough to provide the society with sufficient food and
it takes very long to harvest.
Therefore, to have a big population, scientist used technology to invent
harvest machineries and chemical fertilizers and pesticides to ease the
process. With this, it leads the society
with one question “Is it healthy?”
Animals like buffalos and cows are
no longer involved in modern farming as the plowing trucks took over jobs in a
much more efficient ways that really boost the economy and the society would
not have to fear of scarcity as they used to have. The only negative effect with technology in
this field would again be structural unemployment. Machines are able to work more efficiently
and save costs in which owners will not have to hire less workers to harvest
the produce. This will cost many people
to loose their jobs and many would be unemployed. But in the economic point of view, 5%
unemployment rate = full employment which is healthy to the world economy.
Art, Music &
Film Industry
Technology is advancing everyday and
Internet users have more access to more information daily. With such technology advancements, it actually
brings more negatives effect to this industry compared to other industries
discussed above. It is upsetting that Internet
users take advantage of the Internet and do not care about how will it affect
the industries. Copyright materials are
downloadable anywhere online for free without having to pay a single cent to
the people behind producing it. Let us
take a closer look on the advantages and disadvantages on what technological
advancement had to do with these business industries.
In the art industries such as dance, performing art and visual arts, technology advancements open many doors to more creative and unique ideas put together accentuating this art form into a whole new level. MoCap (Motion Capture) is a new technology introduced in 2007 for animation movies. It is a suite with many sensors on the joints to capture movements and then converted into animations (Bregler). Dancers are often hired to dance in these suits for a certain character of a cartoon like Barbie and the 12 Dancing Princes. If you watched America’s Got Talent Season 9, there were some amazing dances performed by Blue Journey[1] in which technology is largely incorporated into their dance performance.
3D printers are also invented and
stabilized in the year 2012 which allows artist to use technology to sculpt
their design from the computer screen into a three dimensional functional
product. This printer will boost the
economy in many ways as it is efficient.
Replacement parts that are broken or rarely found could be created on a
computer screen and be printed out with plastic resins in an instant. According to Richard A. D’Aveni[2],
China’s economy will not be facing any downfall but as the 3D printer takes
hold, workshops in China will loose much of its workforce. “China will have to give up on being the
mass-manufacturing powerhouse of the world. The strategy that has given it such
political heft won’t serve it in the future (D’Aveni).”
Music and the film industry, in the
other hand, is not as lucky as many other art industries listed above. With the easy access of songs, music and
movies online, internet users are able to download many of the medias with just
one click without a single cent. The singers,
songwriters and composer are not doing charity for the society but it is their
business instead. Many of them lost a
large amount of money in this scenario.
With illegal downloading, the music industry lost about $3.5billion in
five years. It is still declining each
year with about 2.1% decline rate; but, economists believed that with future
technological enhancement with copyrights, the amount will soon be accelerating
(Owsinski). In the film industry, Rose[3]
says that “loss of
revenue is of concern to networks and film company masters because it is illegal, cutting into profits and virtually unstoppable due to advanced technology.” Piracy and illegal downloading also boost while technology is advancing affecting big loss in the film industries. Due to these loss, the US had set laws to people convicted of copyright infringement will be imprisoned up to 5 years, fined up to $250,000 or both. It is actually impossible to catch a victim because there are close to 361 million Internet users worldwide (World Internet Users) and most downloaders are anonymous (Strauss).
Conclusion
Technological advancement surely brought
many benefits to the society and economy in the business world. Without these advancements, we would be left
behind and we will not have access to almost any and everything we are able to
access today. Technological advancement
had brought the world with convenience; it is efficient, saves costs and saves
lots of time. The three big benefits of
technological advancement had made the world a better place to live in
today. According to Moslow’s hierarchy
of needs, our human need is like a pyramid shown below that will affect an individual
and their personalities (Bade).
Technological advancement plays a big role in the base two levels of the
pyramid in which will provide an individual with their psychological and safety
needs. This pyramid may be familiar if
you had read The Fault in Our Stars by
John Green or taken any economic classes.
Figure 8: Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs.
Work Cited
"Artificial Liver 'could
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and Raymond Bienvenu. "Chapter 2: U.S. and the Wolrd." Foundations of
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Capture Technology for Entertainment." In the Spotlight. IEEE SIGNAL
PROCESSING MAGAZINE, Nov. 2007. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.
<http://cims.nyu.edu/~bregler/Spotlight_mocap_IEEE.pdf>.
Corday, Robert. "The
Evolution of Assembly Lines: A Brief History." Robohub. N.p., 24 Apr.
2014. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.
<http://robohub.org/the-evolution-of-assembly-lines-a-brief-history/>.
Kruse, Kevin. "Top 10
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18 Dec. 2012. Web. 03 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinkruse/2012/12/18/benefits-working-from-home/>.
Lee, Ellen. "5 Ways
Technology Is Transforming Health Care." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 24 Jan.
2013. Web. 16 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/bmoharrisbank/2013/01/24/5-ways-technology-is-transforming-health-care/>.
Motes, William C., Dr.
"Modern Agriculture and Its Benefits – Trends, Implications and
Outlook." Modern Agriculture and Its Benefits – Trends, (n.d.): n. pag.
Global Harvest Initiative. Web. 26 Oct. 2014.
<http://globalharvestinitiative.org/Documents/Motes%20-%20Modern%20Agriculture%20and%20Its%20Benefits.pdf>.
Owsinski, Bobby. "A Look
Into The Music Industry's Crystal Ball." Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 31 Mar.
2014. Web. 28 Sept. 2014.
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/bobbyowsinski/2014/03/31/a-look-into-the-music-industrys-crystal-ball/>.
Perera, David. "U.S.
Grid Safe from Large-scale Attack, Experts Say." POLITICO. N.p., 10 Sept.
2014. Web. 03 Oct. 2014.
<http://www.politico.com/story/2014/09/power-grid-safety-110815.html>.
Richard, D'Aveni A. "3-D
Printing Will Change the World." Harvard Business Review. N.p., Mar. 2013.
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<http://hbr.org/2013/03/3-d-printing-will-change-the-world/>.
Strauss, Karsten. "TV
and Film Piracy: Threatening an Industry?" Forbes. Forbes Magazine, 6 Mar.
2013. Web. 27 Sept. 2014.
<http://www.forbes.com/sites/karstenstrauss/2013/03/06/tv-and-film-piracy-threatening-an-industry/>.
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Clone Named Dolly." The New York Times. The New York Times, 13 Oct. 2013.
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<http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/14/booming/the-clone-named-dolly.html>.
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[1] Watch this video to see
how technology is incorporated into dance:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NwK5BtkEL-4
[2] Richard A. D’Aveni is the Bakala Professor of
Strategy at Dartmouth’s Tuck School of Business and the author of Strategic
Capitalism (McGraw-Hill, 2012).
[3] Jonathan D. Rose,
intellectual property litigator with Bradley Arant Boult Cummings LLP in
Nashville, Tenn.
