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Accelerating Business Now Takes More Than Just A Mobile Phone

Ten or fifteen years ago, a business could get a huge boost in customer satisfaction, employee satisfaction and customer responsiveness simply by giving sales employees a mobile phone and a laptop. That strategy made them able to work anywhere and at anytime, and to glee of shareholders and executives, they did exactly that.

However, in 2010 that's not enough. Increasing productivity through generic information technology investment is getting harder and harder to do.

In the 2000-2001 recession, companies lacked good information systems and typically reacted too late to changes in demand. Even sophisticated companies like Cisco had customers placing duplicate orders for high-demand networking gear on resellers and on their direct sales professional. Whoever delivered the product first got paid. The slower one got a cancelled order. So the order management system told the supply chain and the management team that the demand was a lot stronger than it actually was, creating an over-build that simply exacerbated that recession.

This is not the same challenge today.

In this recession, companies had notice that there were issues in demand and reacted accordingly, quickly and without hesitation to reduce staff, stop investments and eliminate spending. What will it take to accelerate business and move this economy this time?