Introduction
The rapid development of technologies coupled with the processes of globalization in one way or another affects every business industry. The pace of discoveries is comparable in scale to the first scientific revolutions, which completely changed the processes of production and the daily life of people. Innovation is becoming an integral part of every large organization that wants to remain at the forefront of the market. Information systems, in turn, began to be widely used not only in the IT industry but also in education, transport, aviation, and human resource management – in almost every industry. In this regard, the study of the process of technological innovation is of both scientific and theoretical interest and practical. In this paper, an attempt is made to consider both the fundamental theories of managerial innovation and the existing technologies that are used right now in many areas of business, as well as their prospects. The scientific novelty will be in the modern comparison of these categories.
The purpose of this study is to find the most widely used and promising modern technologies in business and entrepreneurship, as well as theories associated with these technologies, using a critical literature review. The main tasks highlight the work on the analysis of literary sources and the assessment of technology implementation processes according to innovation management theories. As a result, the most relevant at the moment theories will be selected, which will be confirmed by real examples from journal articles. The structure of this work includes a review and assessment of current technologies, the main provisions of theories of innovative management; analysis and correlation of technologies in practice with scientific theories; conclusion and conclusions.
Actual Technologies
Computer and electronic innovative technologies are more and more firmly entrenched in every sector of the economy. They have a practical impact on doing business for entrepreneurs, and users can receive high-quality goods and services quickly. On the one hand, new technologies for business are becoming more powerful and flexible, and on the other, they are increasingly spreading to various branches of the business economy. To ensure success, developing countries must be competitive in a global economy, where production processes are subject to the foundations of flexibility and decentralization (Fukuda, 2020). It is here that computer technology begins to stimulate and accelerate the pace of development, introducing effective changes in office work. By starting to use advanced technologies that provide free access to information, it’s processing, and storage, business people are developing more extensive and more efficient work productivity, as well as resistance to competition from industrial countries (Ravichandran et al., 2017). As a result, the positive aspects of implementing technologies in business processes greatly outweigh the possible disadvantages, which explains their widespread use.
Each large company has its website, and if its activities are related to sales, then this site has the form of an online store. Email capabilities have been around for a long time. Obligatory work with social networks, company profiles in maps, and feedback services is also an essential element in the life of most companies, up to individual entrepreneurs. Even minor points of sale now have to accept cashless payments using e-commerce technology. Human Resources is a frequent and essential consumer of information technology. Today, all HR processes are subject to automation and digitalization, except perhaps for private conversations with an employee. Employee search services – recruitment – for companies are at the same time job search services for candidates. Processes are improving every year, and if something is missing in the service itself, integration with the information system can be set up (Bothma, 2018). For example, for better storage and search in the database of applicants’ resumes who have responded for many years. For corporations with thousands of vacancies in different regions, such additional services are relevant. Also, vacancies can connect neural networks to parse resumes for the most popular ones with more than a hundred responses per day, and the first communication with candidates can be carried out by a voice robot or chatbot (Tongkachok et al., 2021). However, this is far from the entire list of technologies available to businesses.
Cloud storage is gaining popularity, which no longer requires companies to have bulky physical servers. Third-party hosting companies offer their services for storing large amounts of information in cloud storage. It is easier and more profitable for small companies to use cloud storage of documents, cloud CRM, and cloud business intelligence (Alam, 2021). This fact allows not spending money on equipment and staff of infrastructure support specialists and being sure of a high level of service availability and quick elimination of non-staff problems (Diaby & Rad, 2017). Large companies, in turn, do not always strive to switch to this type of storage. Firstly, the data on their servers may contain too sensitive information for business, and although hosting services guarantee one hundred percent lack of access to data from third parties, not everyone is ready to do it. Secondly, the legislation of some countries prohibits storing personal information, which is often contained in the databases of even small companies, on foreign hosting; the price and quality of services are often better.
Another important discovery of recent times is artificial intelligence. Business process robotization is the automation of repetitive business processes by installing software that, using user interfaces, works with applications and components “on top” of the leading IT architecture, repeating actions traditionally performed by a person (Lee et al., 2019). RPA handles many manageable employee tasks: filing paperwork, generating reports, sending emails, scheduling a schedule, and meeting reminders. The bot can even make calls, make appointments, and consultations, and communicate with clients via a chatbot. Most of the processes, which have a clear structure of the rules for conducting, input data, and a stable and predictable result, are already automated in many enterprises (Liu & Zhang, 2020). At the same time, artificial intelligence is still considered one of the most promising areas both in information technology and in its implementation in business processes.
Other business solutions include using technologies such as working with big data, accounting and expert systems, neural networks, project management, mobile technologies, and much more, which is enough for a particular job. In this paper, the above were considered database technologies and associated processes, usually used in HR, cloud storage, and artificial intelligence in the context of process robotization. Below are the main provisions of the theory of innovative management and answers to the questions about why innovation is so essential for maintaining competitiveness.
Innovation Management Theories
The role of managerial innovations is increasing today in an economy that is dynamically transforming under the influence of information systems development. The challenges that arise as a consequence of the fourth industrial revolution form the basis for rethinking the role of technological innovations and managerial ones. The innovations themselves are divided into breakthrough and supporting ones: the first group completely changes the existing market for a product or service, and the second type does not create new value networks (Köhler, 2019). This classification can be prolonged in different ways over time; however, there is a division into radical and variable innovations for the time frame. Four of these types are added into a matrix with which it is possible to describe any innovation.
Business models are also based on the theory of the source of innovation. The source can come from marketing, technology, or business processes while admitting the possibility of origin from several areas at once (Nambisan et al., 2019). Any changes begin with stagnation and analysis of the market and consumer of a service or product. Replacing the existing business model is a multi-step process, from opposition to alignment and pilot projects. Such models of classification by source are pretty famous; among them, the Doblin model of ten types of innovations (Thomassen et al., 2018) is distinguished. Each of these theories distinguishes technology into a separate category.
Correlation of Theory and Practice
The presented theories are needed not only to classify innovation when it is already included in the workflow but also to analyze the company’s existing market and individual aspects, in which there have been no innovations and new developments for a long time. Disruptive innovations in large organizations with well-established values and approaches always take a long time to implement, creating an advantage for more adaptive competitors. In this regard, using current classification methods in management policy is an essential tool for maintaining a leading position in the market.
Technologies tend to be disruptive innovations, but not all companies can give them a radical type. Changes take time, and therefore, the organization’s adaptation will always be slightly slower than the actual pace of development of information technology. New technologies tend to be expensive, which also reduces the number of companies that can afford them. The exception is cloud storage, which is just an adequate solution for small and medium-sized businesses. The issue of their use affects not only the financial side of the issue but also the economy in general and the side of security. Finally, marketing departments must constantly keep an eye on the day-to-day technology that their target audience uses. The content of business accounts on social networks must be constantly maintained according to updates in these social networks and take into account the dynamics of trends. All these questions can be analyzed using the theoretical approaches described above. In this regard, the use of technologies and the development of innovations in practice must have a clear theoretical structure and a foundation for their successful use.
Conclusion
Information technologies never stand still and require constant development in each specific company. They are changing business processes, new lines of business, outdated implementation platforms, and new information security requirements. All this and much more moves the business towards the constant updating of its information systems. However, tremendous success can be achieved by applying various theories of management innovation, which are primarily classifications and divisions of certain aspects of the company. Naturally, these theories are associated with decision-making methods and other management strategies, forming an integrated approach to analyzing and implementing any innovation.
References
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