Technology Is Only A Tool For Business
For at least the past 2 days my friends voice mail has not been working properly. Some of his employees’ mailboxes cannot be accessed to leave a message. Some appear to accept messages, but do not. This is a disaster for his business. Unfortunately the people providing support for his voice mail see it only as a technical problem to be worked my customer support.
Because he computer system which is his voice mail system can’t be trusted at the moment, my friend is tied to his desk answering every incoming phone call. He cannot afford to miss calls. It impacts the support he gives to his customers.
In another vein, the professional image of his business is negatively impacted by this failure of technology. Fortunately, most other business people have suffered through the similar technology failures and will cut him some slack. Still, phone and computer technology are looked upon as a utility, ubiquitous dial tone.
The most disturbing part is that the management in the support company has the same attitude. For some reason they don’t understand that working their process does not solve my friends problem. It’s just technology to them.
Business 101 for propeller heads (and I’ve been called one) states that the objective of a business is to make money. People use tools to run their businesses. Functionally, a computer or the Internet is the same thing as a hammer to a business. If the hammer doesn’t do what it is intended to do, it isn’t of any use to the business.
So, the question comes up, if the technology and the people who support that technology don’t provide the productivity enhancement that was promised, what should my friend do?