04/10/2011
By Ben Weiner, CEO, Conjungo
At what point do we the consumer decide that we need something, be it gadgets, clothes, or food? Generally we know (obviously) when we’re cold and hungry. But it’s not that straight forward simply because consumer product purchasing has a large element of emotion attached and not always practicality. What I mean by this is what economists call ‘conspicuous consumption’ (read Wikipedia - Conspicuous consumption). This means that people will purchase items in order to visibly demonstrate their wealth, such as buying designer labels which offer no more benefit than a less expensive item of clothing. Ditto, food. We don’t really need to eat ‘foie gras’ or caviar for that matter. This can be applied to most consumer spending and indeed consumer behaviour.
The opposite is true of the business community. There is (or at least there shouldn’t be), any emotion involved when buying new equipment or services for a company. Decisions are based on price, service, quality of the product, ongoing support, expertise and location of supplier. There are other criteria but to illustrate the point, it is not an emotive purchase.
So, at what point does a business person decide that their business requires an ERP system or perhaps that they would benefit from CRM or indeed VoIP. The answer is I really don’t know quite simply because most people don’t understand what these terms mean let alone what the technology can deliver by way of business benefits.
Technology is confusing at the best of times, in fact try it yourself. Type in VoIP into your favourite search engine and see what comes back. Then once you’ve waded through the huge amounts of information that comes back and perhaps you’ve actually found something relevant, try and understand it what it all means.
What is it?
What is its future? (Is it a fad or a viable long term technology?)
What are the business benefits?
Why does my business need it?
What are the potential pitfalls of buying it?
Who can supply it and support it?
If you’ve managed to answer all of the above and the information was in clear, lay terms, then please let me know, especially if this can be replicated for all major technologies because I’ve yet to find anything like this. Sure there are sites that are useful for technologists who have a long term and profound understanding of these technologies, but only from a very technical perspective.
So we know that there really isn’t any one website where you can research and easily understand what technology is and does from a layman’s perspective. Until now that is.
To find out more please visit www.conjungo.com
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