Adopting New Tech — Conservative or Aggressive?

We live in an exciting time for technology.

There is a great deal of technology available that will make your company

more profitable or more efficient. You may even have specific people

allocated to identifying and evaluating new technologies that may be

beneficial to your company. Depending on your business model, you may be

inundated with vendors who promise that adopting their technology will

save you money, increase productivity, and make upper management giddy.

The million dollar question is when is it time to adopt emerging

technologies?

In order to answer this question properly, you have to take a look at

your company culture. It’s defined as the unique personality of your

employees within your company, and it’s based strongly on the position

that management and upper management take toward change.

For example, is your company culture innovative/visionary, early adopter,

average adopter, or conservative? Recognizing where you fall will help

you when you need the million dollar question answered.

Let’s break down the unique personality of your company so we can

correctly identify your specific company culture.

An innovative/visionary type would be classified as a company and

management team who take risks and are eager to adopt new technologies

quickly. They welcome change and are open to risk because they see the

payoff to be significant, either in the form of profits, efficiency of

operation, inspiration to employees, leadership in the field, or any

number of other forms. They understand that early adoption may not always

work out, but they thrive on the excitement of the technology. This type

of company tends to hire enthusiastic, flexible overachievers who are

driven to succeed and want a new technology the second it goes into early

beta stages of development.

An early adopter would be classified as a management team and

organization that needs some stability before moving forward but looks to

its future, always wanting to have the latest technology as soon as it is

released. They are well-informed on new technologies as they develop and

emerge, and research the potential benefits of adopting the latest and

greatest. These people are leaders when it comes to implementing new

things, but they lead more cautiously than the innovative/visionary

group. An early adopter differs from an innovative/visionary as they do

not take as much risk.

The average adopter is defined as the company and management team who

must eventually move to the technology so they will not be left behind.

They dont seek the thrill and leadership role of being one of the first

out of the chute. And while they may acknowledge the possible payoffs of

the new technology, they prefer not to leave that which is comfortable.

They take very little risk and only change because everyone else is doing

it. They basically keep up with the Jones’.

Conservative management and organizations want to take no risk at all and

resist change. They will wait as long as possible to adopt a new

technology, and have the attitude of ”if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it”.

These are companies that fight to the very end when forced to change or

adopt any piece of new technology.

Keep in mind that the position of your management team toward change and

your company culture can vary depending on the type of technology you are

introducing. You may be cutting-edge on collaboration technology, but

conservative on your hardware infrastructure.

Now take a moment and try to identify where your management group and

company fit within this model on a specific technology you are interested

in adopting. For example, let’s say you are looking at a new piece of

technology for your company. You may ask yourself: