The Convergence of Business and Technology

The Convergence of Business and engineeringWhile proficient crossroad is no longer a reinvigorated idea, the fascination with the subject lies with the capabilities and applications of both hybrid and brand new technical platforms and the slipway previous stand alone industries, hold back been reconfigured and thereby mobilised to give enhanced proceeds livery. Such crossway pertains to the digitisation of communications and the ways discrete media formats have become accessible to other media forms have been advertize factors in this process (Saltzis, 2007). In technical equipment casualty, Saltzis (2007) reminds us that the new technologies everywherelap chamberpot be attributed to developments in digitization, bandwidth and compression as n archaean as interactivity.Moreover, the rapidity and pervasiveness of expert lap has seized the entrepreneurial imagination and arrested the attention of scotch rationalists, with respect to the devices used by institutions at heart the communications and media industries, as well as the data they process, distribute, and exchange over and through these devices (Mosco and McKercher 2008 37). Such crossway also focuses upon the integration of or interface between and among different media systems and organizations, make possible by the development of new technologies (Mosco and McKercher 2008 37).With this being said, a more than fertile field to explore, derives from the recognition that while technology continues to converge, so does the somatic world. The nub of this issue is the nature and extent of the link between these devil types of intersection point, and the nuanced ways in which one shapes and is shaped by the other. Corporate intersection point, fit in to Babe (1996284-285) refers to the mergers, amalgamations, and diversifications, whereby media organisations come to operate across previously distinct pains boundaries. Babe extends this explanation stating that in incorporated convergence refers to the non-technical features of convergence, which also contribute to the blurring of pers constantlyance boundaries (Babe 1996 284-285). Examples he cites in the 1990s from his Canadian context include season Warner combining book publishing, music recording, and movie making, not to mention credit line television, (while) Rogers Communications, Inc. engage in parolepaper and magazine publishing, long-distance and cellular telephony, logical argument television, and radio/television broadcasting (Babe 1996 284-285).While it is self evident that corporate convergence promotes and is promoted by technological convergence (Mosco and McKercher 2008 37), closer attention is warranted to fancy the nature of the promotion and the ways these two significant convergences influence each other. It is illuminating as we do this to itemise dimensions of technological convergence, to begin to ace the beas of synergy between technology and corporate enterprise. The In ternational Telecommunications Union (ITU) has been implemental in its examination of convergence, by singling out device convergence, network convergence, service convergence and regulatory convergence (ITU 2008). While the ITU cites examples of devices include busy phone, tv camera and mesh access device, network examples include fixed-mobile convergence and next-generation networks (ITU 2008). Moreover, service convergence is exemplified by voice services over the internet not to stymie regulatory convergence for broadcasting and telecommunications, citing the example of the Office of Communication (Ofcom) in the United Kingdom (ITU 2008).The view of convergence from the corporate stakeholder, according to Andriole (200528), is ideally a multi-disciplinary, anticipatory, adaptive and cautious one, no longer about early adoption of unproven technology, but instead about questions of business technology acquisition, deployment and management (Andriole 2005 28). The sense that t he momentum has changed within the corporate sector, prompting corporate leaders to be ready to have convergence conversations is clearly joint by Andriole (2005). It is advocated that companies volition benefit by thinking in terms of business technology convergence plans (Andriole 2005 28). Instead of technology being a footnote or a discrete department within a corporation, through its own array of convergences, it instantly occupies a central fix in underpinning corporate cultures. As a response to this generational carrier bag in consciousness, business planning now closely consults with technological providers, do corporate decisions and goals. This change of thought led spawned a new series of business planning questions, which demonstrate some of the links between technological and corporate convergence. Questions which illustrate this include How does technology define and enable economic transactions? What business models and processes are underserved by technology ? Which are adequately or over-served by technology? (Andriole 2005 29)Now when strategic planning is tabled as an agenda item within companies, the issue of technological capabilities is taken seriously, as corporations realise that sidelining technological plan, is a stepping stone towards giving away trade edge to ones competitors. Indeed, Andriole (2005 30) forewarns of the perils of business technology segmentation. Instead of a new business initiative being c formerlyived then asking what technological capability exist to support it, Andriole (2005 30) argues that technologists must be present as part of the materialisation process of a companys development goals and strategies.One fundamental area a business model which value efficiency and effectiveness is the calibre of the internal and external communications systems and infrastructure. In the twenty-first century business context of orbicular interfacing, communications which are pervasive, secure and reliable (Andriol e 2005 30), are a base line issue. The fillip to acquire such state of the art systems is one factor whimsical further technological convergence, as the grocery store demand fosters technological innovation to bring market edge to communications. The airline industry is a serviceable case in point, with particular proposition international airlines branding being fostered by the level of their onboard amusement systems for travelling customers. Some international airlines have invested intemperately in this component of their corporate identity to enhance their market niche, displaying convergence through the multi-media, multi-channel video and music on demand, personalised entertainment systems, which now permit replay and play back functions (Yu 2008).We are reminded us that a large area of compatibility and synchronicity between technological and corporate convergence relates to the classical intimacy networks, such as universities, corporations and investors, who derive great benefits from convergence, purpose more penetrating ways to exchange information and knowledge, their primary imagery Saltzis (20072). Additionally, since political, economic and financial power is derived from shared information, the value of corporate convergence to the stock markets and to companies is self evident. In relation to the priming of information prevail via the synergy between corporate and technological convergence, some observers are ascendent to draw attention to the sociological trend that knowledge, through these processes, has become slight of a residential area resource and progressively a commodity. As information is commodified, it is packaged to target specific interest groups and economic stakeholders, who prize specific knowledge for specific outcomes, in terms of client need and demand. This exemplification of the knowledge super highway shows that knowledge can be positioned within the market with greater precision through convergence, eve n so , in so doing, may easily lose its original contextual underpinnings that imbued it with richer nuances of meaning in the first place. This phenomenon is perhaps no more evident than in pedigree television, where networks and individual channels are devoted to specific capacitance delivery 24 hours a day. The downside of course, is that information must be assimilated rapidly on the take up side by the media corporation, just as it is foisted upon the consumer with a forced- feed pretext, to make room for the next feed. Information, through such merging(prenominal) capabilities, that permit bites of knowledge to be digitally transferred globally and instantaneously, allows knowledge to be stripped of the framework in which it emerged, just as it is quickly, to that extent superficially digested by the global consumer. When information held the status of being a community resource, rather than a global commodity, it could be used at the allow for of the consumer, for their own determined purpose, rather than the commodified purpose preselected by the respective media conglomerates that uphold the promulgation of endless information.Further challenges to technological and corporate convergence trends, apart from dilution of meaning due to the multiplicity and potentially splintering of sources, according to ITU (2008) concerns, content distribution and management, sustainability and scalability, innovation management, competitive dynamics, tariff policies, network security, regulatory viscidness and consumer protection (ITU 2008). While the broadening of avenues for content distribution has the allure of versatility, the extremist distribution of music in the past decade illustrates the potency of convergence, morose to undermine the very industry it was seeking to promote. I-Tunes and other legal internet based distribution pathways for music radically altered the income and revenue streams derived from fashionable music providers globally. Whi le the consumer was benefited through the open door of access to music, (just as the educational market was reconfigured once educational corporations began to exploit the potentialities of online delivery of educational content at school and university level), the demand for live music globally initially declined, yet has now been buoyed up by the benefits of enhanced global exposure, on account of the global penetration capacity of online music.Another opinion of this link that has pressurised corporations like never before has been how to safeguard the integrity of informational, entertainment or intellectually creative products, once they are so widely available via the world wide web. The proliferation of cloned products has the tendency to diminish the role, reputation or demand for the original. Corporations have had to weigh the benefits of more universal distribution, against this tendency to have the integrity of a product compromised. This, in one sense has been as muc h about re-education of the consumer, who remains driven by the desire for quality in many instances, overlooking the detracting influence of You-Tube look alike musical bands renditions of hit singles by either reputable or undimmed new talent.Patently, issues of security remain paramount, in this race towards virally changing convergences, whether it is the protection of personal data by entertainment companies, the finance sector or an individual relying upon social networking websites to foster their new relationships. Banks reputation for safety once built at the store front only, to remain competitive amid their market rivals, has now shifted to the quality and integrity of their web presence. This same notion extends of course, to an ever growing margin of the retail sector, and the sporting sectors, who realise that within the 21st century era of the new media users, the digital native populations will increasingly rely upon web based sources for their interfacing with the world. Ironically, even large scale media totals have a go at it the technological convergence can allow the operator of a mobile phone with a camera component, to drive world changing conditions, in the event that anybody happens to be at the in effect(p) place at the right time, and films an international crisis on the telephone, then posts it on the web, embarrassingly before a major news corporation has the time or the infrastructure to run them. This realization has brought a new sense of recognition from major news broadcasters, to the power and penetration of websites like You-Tube, creating in journalists a scrutinizing eye for such alternate culture havens to assist the construction of mainstream breaking news stories.The future day looks bright for the ongoing convergence of technologies and corporate agendas. We are reminded of the profound benefits of the digitization revolution, yielding enormous gains in transmission speed and flexibility over earlier forms of el ectronic communication, (Mosco McKercher 2008 38) extending the range of opportunities to measure and monitor, package and repackage entertainment and knowledge (Mosco Mckercher 2008 38).Nonetheless, the need to balance economic welfare and human welfare continues to be of concern, and one of the many implications of the increasing reciprocity, between technological and corporate convergence. In the field of media journalism news outturn convergence, Klinenburg reiterates that convergence facilitates a more rapid confluence of sources impinging upon an event or a tommyrot, yet it also intensifies the pressures upon the journalists time to conduct interviews, go out into the field, research and pull through (2007 128). The processing time available at the human level continually diminishes, and when the technical speed is permitted to eclipse the human processes of digestion of knowledge and subsequent reflection, the ensue may ironically, in spite of a seemingly infinitely gre ater number of sources, be inferior, less news worthy and more insubstantial, than in would have been if the journalist had to rely upon more traditional methods of crafting a story to be broadcast or published.While we have such warnings of convergence being manifest as a concentration of technological ownership, in the form of the global media conglomerates (Saltzis 2007), occurring in tandem at the three levels of networks, production and distribution (Saltzis 2007), it is prudent to be cogniscent of the fact that such monopolization can create an hegemonic corporate empire, allowing such media outlets to in effect be ample funnels for particular ideological positions. Divergence of ownership, on the other hand, may be a way to democratise control and use of these powerful pass on delivery mechanisms, yet without inbuilt check and balance systems, the corporate stakeholder will rarely consider that their over- influence in the market place of ideas is injurious to society.Sinc e convergence researchers are ambivalent about the relative degree to which the conglomeration of the global media has been the causal factor of technical convergence, or whether it is its by-product (Saltzis 2007), there remains much to scrutinize, as we more globally to a yet more convergent means of conducting business as well as producing, disseminating and consuming information, for diverse purposes. Saltziss observations seem pertinent in the terminal analysis. While the benefits of these transitions include the merging of consumer bases the creation of synergies with shared resources (utilising economies of scope and scale) as well as cross-promotion, the instability of the global media system, with its intense competition, advertising, peer-to-peer file manduction technologies, have established significant challenges for both the music and film industries (Saltzis 2007). The matter of e-regulation is, as Saltzis asserts, in its infancy (2007), with many more competing poli tical, economic and respectable questions to consider, as the global market place continues to converge.BibliographyMosco, V. McKercher, C. (2008) The Laboring of Communication lead Knowledge Workers of the World Unite? Rowman LittlefieldSaltzis, K. (2007) Corporate and Technological Convergence (Lecture 8) peeled Media and the Wired World MS2007.International Telecommunications Union (2008) World Telecommunications Policy assemblage 2009 Convergence, accessed December 13, 2008 from http//www.itu.int/osg/csd/wtpf/wtpf2009/convergence.htmlYu, R (2008) Airlines Upgrade Entertainment in preservation Cabin USA Today retrieved from http//www.usatoday.com/travel/flights/2008-05-05-inflight-entertainment_N.htm December 13, 2008.