Technology Trickles Up

About a month ago I went to a Presidential speech in Waterloo, Iowa. While entering the area, I saw a lot of people selling pins and shirt. I started to assume that If I want to buy things from them, I will need to have cash. So with all the curiosity I had, I asked the seller if I can pay with credit card. The seller showed me his iPhone and Square device that allows him to accept transactions with credit card.

There are a lot of things in the world today that amazes people. Technology as broad as internet perhaps have helped him order t-shirts and pins from abroad, and devices as small as iPhone with square have allowed him to expand the number of transactions he can have.


This is one of an examples where every person on earth can be a businessman. There are a lot more tools out there than helps an individual to open a business, creating an even more competitive market. Social medias (Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest), Amazon.com, Ebay.com, blackberry messenger; All the platforms mentioned are currently online sources of transaction for start-up businesses. Even with easier tools to make websites, start-up businesses can have their own page to sell their items. Besides just selling their items, start-up businesses can now mine data about their customers through Google Analytics or even Facebook's insight tool.

The challenge is now thrown upon corporations to learn from how emerging businesses use technology to operate or improve their businesses. The faster corporations can adopt emerging technologies effectively and efficiently, the more they can take market's attention and gain a more positive image as leading edge business, hence the higher the sales they can get. An example of corporation that follows start-up business technology model is Starbucks. Recently, Starbucks have announced that they are teaming up with Square technology and investing $25 million on this technology to be implemented in the United States. Through this technology, customer simply needs to say their name to the cashier. The cashier will match up the customer's pictures and ready to serve them. Something as simple as utilizing mobile app in stores is predicted to help increase the flow of transactions and sales.

Starbucks is one of the example of business following the start-up business trend and now getting a highlight in the retail industry. There is a lot more opportunities within the mushrooming new technologies that individual might or might not have utilized but is potential for businesses to use to improve operations, reduce costs, or simply become more like-able to customers. What corporations need to do are to watch, to analyze, and to decide what fits the needs of their businesses; and to be more innovative than others.


CA.