Technological Trends

Improved Tech Support

Technical support is harder and harder to come by. Note the shortage of trained technical support personnel to help diagnose and repair equipment or software. Staff shortages result in increased workload for the existing staff. The shorthanded staff is forced to innovate. Note the increased reliance on remote help desk personnel to fix problems. Note the increased use of remote diagnosis software to view a user’s desktop and diagnose a problem from a remote location.

Improved Hardware

1. Increased reliance on fault tolerant designs coupled with the continued improvement in the reliability of individual components, leads to a significant improvement in computer life span and a significant increase in the mean time between failures.
2. Note the emergence of industry standards that promotes interchangeable hardware.
3. Total cost of ownership tends to decrease as more and more reliable, cheap equipment gets introduced into the workplace.

Improved Processes

1. Process diagramming has always been used as a management tool. With the recent push to re-engineer the workplace, many businesses have placed renewed emphasis on these types of tools. Re-engineering efforts generally work from the bottom up and touch every element of a business. The recent crop of process management tools are built so their products can be easily shared throughout the company (e.g. over the company intranet).
2. Note the introduction of improved Business Process Modeling software. Note the easy availability of process maps from internet repositories and shrink wrapped software packages. Also note the widespread acceptance of standard file formats to record and share the data.

Global Standards

Note the increased acceptance (and adoption by foreign colleagues) of standard AIA CAD practices around the world because of the increased use of off shore drafting services by US firms. Tech transfer takes place when these US based off-shore drafting services offer their services and know how to other foreign clients. The foreign clients will tend to accept work done to US standards because the drafting service will be as proficient with these standards as any other. There will be no cost premium for work done to the highest standard. Drafting services will tend to market themselves as the best value for the money by offering more and more quality for the same price as their competitors.

Standard Software Configurations

1. Work product is easier to control if we use standard software configurations.
2. Standardized software setups are easier to deploy, repair and maintain.

Reference: “Centralization vs. Decentralization of Application Software” by David Schuff & Robert St. Luis; Communications of the ACM, June 2001 (Vol. 44 Number 6)