When computers first made their way to offices, each PC acted as an individual unit. Computing resources were not shared, and offices usually kept printed documents in large filing cabinets to share information. Thanks to advances in software engineering, businesses have since migrated more and more resources to cloud services, allowing workers to share folders, share entire hard drives, and use software installed on the cloud. This new technology is what is now known as cloud computing.
Naturally, as the work processes of employees adjust to match this change, the role of management must change also. Here are five ways cloud computing is changing the way people manage businesses.
In the past, to move into a managerial position, workers were mostly concerned with building experience and showing their capability as leaders. In more recent years, greater focus has been placed on educational qualifications. Now, though managers aren’t expected to know all about software engineering, they must nonetheless possess high levels of computer literacy.
Familiarity with new technology becomes even more important as businesses continue to automate processes. A manager who cannot keep up, or better, stay ahead, will likely not hold their position for long.
For a long time, the IT department was seen as just tech-savvy admin staff. Workers relied on software engineering to fix hiccups in the system, and called on the IT guy when the internet was down or the printer was acting up. The tech team was useful, but not nearly as indispensable as they are, now.
These days, the department in charge of information technology at a company not only help with maintenance, but help to move the company ahead. In many businesses, every department of the organization is affected by how well the tech team does its job. For this reason, the CEO and head of finance are not the only managers everyone wants to make an alliance with anymore. The head of the tech team is often equally important.
There was a time when restructuring only happened when a company was losing money. Positions were made redundant and entire teams disappeared as the company could no longer pay them. However, as advances in software engineering causes more processes to become automated, the unfortunate reality is that the company needs fewer human resources, even though it is saving money.
This creates a constant focus on restructuring for management, especially if they are committed to keeping as many of their workers as possible. If the workers handle confidential information, this is especially important. Workers will need to be retrained, reassigned, or even transferred to new locations.
If the effects so far seem daunting, then consider that one benefit of cloud computing is remote work. Because a tax director no longer needs to walk down the hall to access payroll records, and the CEO no longer needs to be directly plugged into the local network to access company software, these and other managers often work remotely.
This changes management’s relationship with the company and its employees. Managers may now work from the comfort of home, but admittedly may also be expected to work while on vacation by the beach. Employees must also take greater accountability for their work, and there is really no telling when the boss might walk through the door.
A more concrete benefit from management changes, due to cloud computing and innovations in software engineering, is the ability to make better decisions. Some of the most commonly automated and documented systems in a business include:
This information allows companies to make more informed decisions without much of the biased guesswork that often went into deciding product designs, big inventory orders, and fleet management, in years past.
Cloud computing is not quite in its infancy, but it still has a long way to go. In the future, more processes will be automated thanks to software engineering and robotics. In fact, even the manager’s job or particular functions of the job may come into question. After all, why trust big decisions to human error, when bots may consider all the data, and make more accurate decisions and projections? Only time will tell.
