by J David Childs

Created on: April 12, 2009   Last Updated: April 13, 2009

Technology offers business efficiencies that enable all of us in the course of business activities to save time. From the discoveries of the attributes of fire, to the invention of the wheel to move heavier things, more things, and to move them all faster, technology has saved us time.

Moving to a more contemporary period than the cave dwellers, many forms of technology have evolved and have cross-pollinated to other industries and vertical markets. Once the technology of producing electricity became easier to generate and generally available, other technological advancements grew exponentially, as well as our ability to manage our time beyond the rising and setting of the sun.

Examples of how technology saves time are infinite, but here are a few:

Today, technology transmits our communications within a matter of small, fractional seconds, leveraging Internet protocol, connection technologies such as Frame Relay or Asynchronous Transfer Mode, and physical layers of fiber, copper, or radio frequencies and their respective transmission equipment to millions of people if we so choose. Before communicating to the masses, however, word processing and database applications help us construct what it is we want to communicate. We save hours, days, and weeks, by having the tools of technology at our disposal to complete our tasks, saving our time for the next business priority.

Electronic commerce saves time for industries and even countries. With the applications supporting electronic transfer between entities, projects can be funded within seconds instead of days, funding can be leveraged for the next start-up that promises to make the next technological advancement, and products and services speed to market increases, saving time and delivering within the windows of opportunity.

In some areas of business, business professionals are using technology to monitor other business professionals, measuring and managing the use of their time.

Call center technology enables management to monitor associates' lengths of calls, call hold time, call answer time, and who the call center associate may be calling. Such monitoring of productivity is another means in which technology has helped us save time. Even spending time watching how others spend their time is a time-saving to business.

As first stated, technology enables the business professional to save time. Whether completing tasks faster or having the capability to multi-task more tasks, technology is the enabling factor in saving time. It is clearly incumbent upon the business professional, however, to use the saved time in a productive manner.

Technology helps us save time when we use it to perform our best in the business functions we have been employed to perform or as business owners. Sure, some of us may use technology for personal matters during the course of the business day. There is no harm in technology saving us time in our personal affairs either, is there? Ethical behavior regarding personal use of an employer's technology intended for business purposes is another matter, however.

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