Here at Alchemy Consulting Group, we provide software for business data organization using FileMaker to create a customized software solution. We love FileMaker for all its functionality and customization features. Our love of bringing technology and business together to maximize efficiency got us thinking about the very intense relationship between business and technology.  We are currently able to produce thousands of times what we used to be able to in agricultural communities, and that’s all because of the production increases technology affords us, whether that be in agriculture, medicine, communications, or any other field. Here, we’d like to go over a little bit of the history of how technology has changed the business world.

The Rise of Inventions

Some time around the 19th century the amount of patents being issued from the United States Patent Office began to rise markedly. While many of these inventions seem archaic or of not much use in today’s society, they allowed many businesses to make huge strides in productivity. Some of these inventions included railroad air brakes, barbed wire, the camera, the typewriter, and much more. These inventions pervaded just about every industry, creating a trend where companies who relied on the latest, most efficient technology got ahead.

Communication and Electricity

Industry requires energy, and before electricity all that energy had to come directly from sources like coal or water. For something like light, which previously required some kind of slow burning material and combustion, you can imagine how costly these fuel sources were to industry. In comes Thomas Edison with his incandescent light bulb, and suddenly lighting is many times cheaper for industries across the nation. By the late 19th century, electric utilities were widespread enough that they became viable for residential neighborhoods.

The beginning of the communication boom can be attributed to Alexander Graham Bell and the invention of the telephone. Just think about the lost revenue a business would have if they had to send a rider out for each and every message that they needed sent. In fact, current production levels wouldn’t even be possible with the communication level of businesses pre-telephone.

Current Developments

If the additional inter-connectivity provided by the telephone caused industries to boom worldwide, you can only imagine the economic explosion caused by the internet. Nowadays, having a smart phone is more of a necessity in the working world than a luxury, if that gives you an idea as to the Internet’s importance. The internet can connect people around the world virtually instantaneously, and at a much cheaper cost than even the telephone can provide. On top of the internet, the sheer computing power of technology today has so far outmatched what the human brain is capable of on its own, that businesses who don’t make use of it quickly fall behind the competition.

One of the biggest areas where computing power helps businesses is data aggregation, organization, and management. One of the biggest problems businesses run into is scalability. Running a business of 10 people is very different from running a business with a thousand people, and that’s across all industries. Some industries scale better than others. When it comes to lost revenue due to inefficient communication of important data, that money can really add up fast as businesses get bigger and bigger.

 

Here at Alchemy Consulting Group, we provide software for business data organizations using  FileMaker 15 and above. If you are looking to trim the fat off your business by cutting unnecessary costs and increasing efficiency, then we can provide the custom software solution to help you do that. If you have any questions about our business or service, please don’t hesitate to give one of our knowledgeable representatives a call today; they’ll be happy to answer any questions you may have.