Better Technologies are Part of the Cure for Today's Economic Doom and Gloom

"We're all doomed!" That phrase appeared in a recent Computerworld headline and encapsulates the feelings that some individuals are having during this current economic crisis. While the headline goes on to conclude that the end of the world is probably not at hand, the text of the article explains that many companies are experiencing financial troubles and need to shift gears in terms of how they act during this economic downturn. Among the actions that the author recommends a company should pursue is taking the time to evaluate every supplier and only pursue those that deliver results for the company. But what are the benchmarks by which companies should measure these results and how are these results measured when it comes to technology?

All signs point to 2009 being a troubled year. Unemployment hit 6.5% in October for the first time in decades; General Motors said it may not have enough cash to keep operating in 2008 and is asking for federal aid to avoid collapse; and even the Berkshire Hathaway, the company owned by the world's richest man, just reported a 77% drop in net income in its third quarter which was its fourth consecutive quarter of profit drops.

Taking all of these facts into consideration, it's no wonder that companies are taking a hard look at what results that they are getting from their current suppliers. But as they look at their suppliers, they need to take an especially critical look at the type of results that their technology suppliers are delivering. Corporate technology has advanced dramatically in the last 10 years simply because the underlying technology has experienced similar dramatic advancement during this same period of time. So while companies may see "results" from their current technology providers, the harder question that they need to answer is, "Are they achieving the types of results that they need to achieve in light of these technology advances?"

Companies now need technology "results" that far surpass what they received ten years ago. For instance, a decade ago companies could backup their production data to tape and were generally satisfied if they could recover their production applications within 1 - 3 days. Fast forward to today and if companies need to wait 1 - 3 days to recover their product applications, they could potentially be out of business. Obviously the decade old technology still delivers "results" but it no longer delivers the type of "results" that organizations need and demand.

Here's where companies need to exercise caution and not get caught looking backwards. During hard economic times, companies historically hunker down and stick with suppliers and technologies that they know. While in some areas this may be the right thing to do, when it comes to technology (and maybe especially when it comes to technology), companies need to look beyond the here and now and select technologies that better match the problems they are experiencing.

No one that I talk to expects internal data growth to stop but neither do they expect to hire more people to help them manage this growth. So what companies need to do is identify technologies that can help them not just better manage their data but take steps to automate its management so less manual intervention is required. For example, companies want to automate application recoveries locally or remotely while ideally spending less money and using less IT staff to accomplish this. New replication technologies with built-in business continuity features like InMage Systems' Scout now help to lower corporate costs while delivering on business needs to automate this process.

Today's headlines about the current economic crisis are stirring everyone's emotions and, rightfully so, considering that the future of one of America's largest companies hangs in the balance. However companies like GM get in these predicaments because somewhere along the way they neglected to use economic downturns as an impetus to tighten their belts, examine their business more closely and then use new technologies to make them run more effectively and efficiently. Today's economic downturn does not need to spell doom for every company but smart companies should be using this as a time to innovate and look at new technologies that will save them money now while making them stronger and more efficient in the future.