How to introduce digital technology into organisations

In assessing the impacts of technology on work, it is useful to introduce a distinction between static contexts, essentially mature markets where there are limits to the entry of new “incumbents” and to the choices of the user or customer, and dynamic contexts, where there are constantly new services and where people will be able to choose between several suppliers for the same service or product.

In the former, technology enables efficiency in the management of activities, while in the latter, technology enables greater scalability, generativity and variability of activities.

One of the most important and discussed impacts is of course on job creation or erosion. My hypothesis is that in dynamic contexts technology may enable more job creation, while in static contexts it tends to reduce them.

Another important impact is on the quality of work in terms of remuneration, human capital development and reconciliation with personal needs. In this case, the effects may differ depending on the contexts and the choices made by those designing and implementing the technology.

In fact, technology for work, especially digital technology, is a neutral tool in itself, whose uses are not universal but are determined by specific choices and contexts. The fundamental choice on which its introduction is based is the idea of the role of people at work, and therefore of how organisations should function in practice.

In particular, if we have a vision of the person as a bearer of ideas, passions, initiatives and resources or if instead we believe that the person is basically a tool that organisations use to implement ideas, projects, initiatives that “others have defined”.

The external context, on the other hand, depends on the sector in which the organisation operates and the competitive dynamics present. Depending on the choices we make and the context we are in, the introduction of technology will therefore have different impacts and a different meaning.

Knowing how to determine the context in which we operate and being clear about the idea of the person we have is therefore fundamental to understanding how to use technology in the most correct way.

In a dynamic context such as the digital economy, with young people looking for autonomy, I believe technology should be used to empower people.
technology should be used, in my opinion, to enhance the operational capacities of those who work by enabling bottom-up connections and activities, and only secondarily for top management control.

Technology must function as a “throw-in” in order to intercept all the opportunities and initiatives that are potentially useful to our business. Not doing so simply means that these activities will go elsewhere and decrease labour productivity.

Secondly, in a dynamic context, the organisation should be thought of as a large testing laboratory in which agile working methodologies are brought into a seamless system between internal collaborators and the external ecosystem.

In this case, technology becomes a tool for developing visions, perspectives of meaning and different realities, making it possible not to leave them on paper but to facilitate their concrete realisation, even with continuous overlapping and contamination.

The realisation of these initiatives becomes in turn the basis for the development of competences in a self-feeding circuit.
that feeds on itself. The role of technology in a dynamic context is therefore certainly recommendable and can lead to a very strong increase in productivity without any negative impact on the quantity and quality of work.

In a static context, however, the role of technology can be more controversial if the right choices are not made. In fact, it is always possible to introduce it as long as it is not only the shareholders and the management but all the workers who benefit from it.

Even in a static market context, it is important that people can use their energies and talents so that the increase in productivity can take place without harming those who work.

It can be useful for example to freely rotate people in this way increasing the engagement and capacity of your organisation. Having more “interchangeable” people with skills that can be used in more than one organisational area is in fact useful even if there are not such strong incentives for operational and economic flexibility.

The effect of involvement, innovation and freshness fuels continuous process improvement and avoids over-customisation of activities.

This can easily be done with collaboration technologies without probably leading to any decrease in productivity.

The design and implementation of technology for work in static contexts should not only free people from the most risky and alienating jobs, but also heal the impacts that excessive organisational rigidity can have on society and individuals.

Static organisations, without proper management, are in fact scarcely inclusive towards women and young people as well as creating the effects of group thinking and ‘cognitive rigidity’.

They also tend to create a spiral of dependency between the individual and the organisation, which is not good for the labour market as a whole.
market as a whole.

Using people as tools is not a neutral choice, and sooner or later there is a risk of paying the bill for this in terms of both productivity and performance.
and sooner or later we risk paying the price in terms of both productivity and social impact.

Job reduction is not the only fruit that technology can bring to the labour market. Many other opportunities can be created and developed provided that the person is truly at the centre of work.

Nicolò Boggian
www.digitalworkcity.com