Information Technology as Driving Force for Innovation

Introduction

Last two decades have seen great stride in information technology. The development in information technology has changed the way business is getting conducted. One of the striking points about information technology is innovation. Information technology has been a driving force for product, service and process innovation.

Innovation in Last Decades

It has brought forward capabilities, which previously were only considered as fiction novel material. Information technology has supported miniaturization of electronic circuits’ making many products’ portable, for example, computers, phones, etc. Information technology has helped development in communication technology by making it affordable. Penetration rate of mobile phone is higher than ever before with greater coverage and with ever lowering cost.

The concept of big data has become reality, with development of high memory storage devices.

Function of Information Technology

Information technology is a network of devices, which are connected with each other, which process data into useful and meaningful information. Information technology, therefore, has six broad functions around which innovation is driven. The six broad functions are as follows:

• Capture: it is defined as a process to obtain information in a form which can be further manipulated. This input of information may be through keyboard, mouse, picture, etc.

• Transmit: it is defined as a process through which captured information is sent from one system to another. This system could be within same geographical boundary or otherwise. For example, Radio, TV, email, telephone, fax, etc.

• Store: it is defined as a process through which captured information is kept in safe and secure manner and, which can be further accessed when required. For example, hard disk, USB, etc.

• Retrieval: it is defined as a process through which stored information can be called upon when required. For example, RAM, hard disk, USB, etc.

• Manipulation: it is defined as a process through which captured and stored information can be transformed. This transformation could be the arrangement of data, calculation, presentation, etc., For example, computer software.

• Display: it is defined as a process of projecting the information. For example, computer screen, printer, etc.

Innovation and Information Technology

The last two decades of development and evolution in information technology is around six functions. The innovation driven by information technology has been the by-product of the six functions. Some of the significant development which has been achieved is as follows:

• Portability: advances in information technology have made portability of all electronic gadgets possible.

• Speed: computing is now done at speed at which earlier generations of super computer were working.

• Miniaturization: another innovation is in form of hand-held computing devices as well as an information system, like GPS, Smartphone, IPad etc.

• Connectivity: information technology has transformed communication capability.

• Entertainment: proliferation of multimedia and digital information has been tremendous.

• User Interface: advancement in information technology has changed way users interact with computing devices. The advent of touch screen has made computing intuitive and interactive.

From above cases it can leave no doubt that information technology and development in the driving force within today’s innovation.