Canadian Transportation industry is going through a hard time along with its U.S. counterpart. Naturally there is a lot of emphasis on restructuring and downsizing. Companies are being innovative in order to manage their expenses and to reduce operational costs while maintaining productivity. In order to achieve objectives, some companies might be looking to improve productivity through automation; some might be considering outsourcing job functions; and others might be working on optimizing business processes. With the workforce becoming more computer savvy, the emphasis on technical solution is far greater than process improvement otherwise. There is also a lot of focus on sales automation, mobile applications, wireless, and RF devices. The objective is the same; how can we perform tasks quicker, cheaper, and/or better. No day goes without having to hear about another software or hardware tool that can help you save money or improve productivity. There is a lot of competition out there and there are certainly a lot to choose from when it comes to software tools.
Who can forget the recession of early 1990s? Even though times were even tougher we came out much stronger and far tougher than we were before. It led to what became a dot-com boom. The email, internet, cell phones, and EDI are just to name a few technologies that emerged and became very prominent. Even though these technologies were available prior to the recession, they didn’t get corporate recognition until after 1991. One would wonder why? I believe corporate world coming out of that recession were far more focused, and receptacle of these technologies. Companies knew they had to do things differently to compete in the market which led to a lot of innovation and automation. A lot of resources were put into web development, GPS tracking, and upgrading computer infrastructure. After that we got a bit carried away over allocating resources in technology and technology based companies which finally ended with the collapse of dot-com bubble. The basic infrastructure like mobile networks, bandwidth, and processing power wasn’t available to support the demanding and ever growing business needs. A lot of the applications were premature and lacking fundamental capabilities.
This was followed by a sobering era in when most companies started to look carefully into new technology in order to understand what would work best for them. I.T. budgets were slashed and greater emphasis was on business process improvement. Perhaps companies went a little too far by not engaging in new I.T. projects as most companies maintained the existing infrastructure. However, this did allow infrastructure to catch up and gave software vendors to make their products feature rich while making is business friendly. This is where we are now.
What should we expect coming out of this recession? Most companies, if not all, have looked at some new technology that they would like to employ within their business in the next two or three years. Customers are also becoming more demanding about E-commerce, EDI, and real-time information transfer. There are a lot of vendors with very sophisticated software tools and are now willing to offer great deals. Telecommunication and satellite providers are also willing to complete to win your business. There is abundance of software to choose from and system capacity is not an issue. So with all the groundwork in place, and with very few limitations for businesses implement new solutions, I see a huge potential for our industry as companies emerge from recession and cash flows start to improve. The emphasis still has to be on careful spending. I.T. will have to take the responsibility to evaluate new software and hardware choices and select what fits your company’s business model. There is a lot of potential for do-it-yourself projects.
Thank you for taking time to read my article.
Gagan Goraya
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