Technology has become a huge part in our society and day-to-day life. It is continuously changing our society in many ways and exerting a strong impact in almost every aspect of our lives: family, health, community life, work, education  and communication. With the accelerating rate of technological innovations, like cloud computing, 3D printing, virtual and augmented reality combined with widespread availability of network access through an array of digital, mobile and social media platforms, the influence of technology on society is intense. Technology seem to be shaping the evolution of humanity  in the future with no diminishing fervour in sight.

Accordingly, the tremendous influence of technologies on organisations is not surprising. In the current knowledge-based society, where information is seen as power, it has become imperative for organisations to become increasingly information-based and benefit from information technologies in its processes and activities.

Particularly, embracing social media and mobile digital platforms which have become part of daily life for people of all ages ( Mon & Mon, 2014, p.54) and the quintessential means of information exchange would positively affect organisational performance. Organisations are under constant pressure to adapt to new roles and new realities to succeed. They are being prodded to transform from ‘self-contained organisations’ to become social spaces and technological centres in order to thrive in today’s interconnected world and participatory culture.

Nevertheless, organisations in this post-millennial world need to make strategic moves at innovating and implementing any latest change to avoid short-term success. The need to assess any new technology’s ecosystem and prioritise whether it can satisfy the customer needs and deliver value in a better way is paramount. The 4-point framework : Creative destruction; Robust coexistence, Robust resilience and Illusion of resilience developed by Adner and Kapoor (2016, p.66), outlines scenarios that organisations could adapt at various transitionary periods of implementing a new technological innovation. Flexibility, practicality, risk-taking and collaboration are principal working culture attitudes, organisations ought to adopt.

Knowledge management (KM) – a social-media based information-sharing system that excels at “identifying, capturing, evaluating, retrieving and sharing all the enterprise’s information assets” (Nisar et. al., 2018, p.264) is another strategic move that can be adopted for organisations to succeed in this Information Age.  The main goal is sharing the knowledge and experience of employees within the organisation. The instantaneity and two-way communication channels which social networking platforms offer, complement how organisations can leverage their employee-generated content. Unlike the need for time-consuming, formal meeting environments and planned agendas, the informal nature of KM, reaps both technical and social benefits. A collaborative organisational structure, knowledge sharing, tracking contributions, gaining insights on new policies and ideas, providing accessibility to employees’ convenience and establishing trust and confidence are gains that assure sustainability of organisations’ success.

Leaders of organisations, thus, need to be skilful in maximising the potential of their  human resources, the information source and practitioners and not prioritise advancement in their technological equipment which are just, tools.

Word count: 485 words

References:

Adner, R., & Kapoor, R. (2016). Right Tech, Wrong Time. Harvard Business Review, 94(11), 60–67.

Kemp, S. (2020). Digital 2020: 3.8 Billion People Use Social Media. We are social. https://wearesocial.com/au/blog/2020/01/digital-2020-3-8-billion-people-use-social-media

Mon, L., & Mon, L. (2014). Social media and library services.

Nisar, T. M., Prabhakar, G., & Strakova, L. (2019). Social media information benefits, knowledge management and smart organizations. Journal of Business Research, 94, 264-272. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jbusres.2018.05.005