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Computerisation of a Company

 

March 13, 2001

  • In theory, any function of a company can be computerised. I believe software programmes for all functions of a company are now on the market.
  • I understand too, several sophisticated programmes - ERP - are on the market.
  • For accounting, inventory etc most companies of size are using such programmes.
  • Even in USA, in big companies too computerisation has not penetrated beyond the surface.
  • Computer is increasing the speed of functions enormously and coordinating different areas of activity, which are inconceivable. In independent use, i.e. where the computer does not interfere with the basic style of company's work, it is being used profusely.
  • The evolutionary value of computer as office machine lies in its ability to replace the entire management once the policy decisions are taken. In this way computer is not considered for us. It is used for its technological convenience. Even that is incomplete.
  • My theme is, if computer is introduced in a company to exhaust its technological uses and routine management decisions are handed over to the computer, that company will straightaway become the leader of the industry at its own level or size.
  • Neither computer, nor any new technological innovation can be fully used by any company because that would take that company outside its social context. Such a thing has not happened in industrial life so far. What has happened is of a different order. New machines are received for their convenience, status symbol etc which over time extends to all industry when it becomes a must in the trade. Thus, the machine is unconsciously availed of or absorbed into the field. For computer to be so accepted, it will take several decades.
  • What I propose now is to understand the value of the computer as a tool for higher profit.
  • For this one has to individually evaluate the ‘Profit-Value' of each available software programme. I cannot imagine less than 20 or 30 such programmes. I am certain introducing anymore of them will raise the profit 5 to 10 times. Therefore, the potential is great. One has to conceive of the great potential by evaluating each programme in its profit component. To know that full computerisation can increase the profit of a company 10 or 50 times in one's mind is a knowledge that has organisational power.
  • Computer eliminates time on a vast scale. Time is money. That should require no convincing. Higher technology, greater skill, time saving measures, elimination of wasteful movements, infusion of capital etc are beneficial to a company.
  • One cannot understand computer when it is considered convenient. It has to be SEEN as an organisational tool, understood in terms of the time it saves, functions it coordinates + much more, in terms of the newer functions it enables the company to perform. Reduced in terms of profit, it cannot be less than 100 times when it is fully utilised. It is worth doing at once.
  • Absorbing a new technology by an institution or the society as a whole is an aspect of social development and it is no wonder, we find computer at the fringes of US Business.
  • This phenomenon, our fully appreciating the gap between status quo + the possibility as a source of business for our consulting is what I insist upon.
  • Theoretically the status quo that obtains is analogous to a riverbed whose middle position is deep + banks shallow. No seashore can be expected to be deep unless it is an exception.
  • In every social phenomenon, this state of affairs is evident, not only in absorption of computer.
  • Education, which has been universal before 1900 in many countries, still, remains out of reach for 60% of the population. Graduation is highest in USA about 40% in that age group, in Europe it goes far below. Why in USA 100% of the population has not availed of education at the level of degree? Spread of knowledge, comfort, skill etc has this rule.
  • This being the case, one can easily see that the improvement of profit 500% is readily possible.

To repeat + underline a few central ideas

1. The FAITH of the consultant in the FACT of computer ability is central.

2. To gain that he needs to study ALL the existing software.

3. By looking at the programme, he must be able to evaluate the profit-value of a programme. E.G. Inventory that now turns in a company twice, on the introduction of the appropriate software can rise to 5 times, it is obvious the capital employed in inventory is used 2 ½ times better. Obviously, it is 2 ½ more sales. I chose this example, as it is easy to illustrate. It means the present profit will rise 2 ½ times.

4. What I say about computer in an industry is an ancient truth we have lost sight of.

5. The gruelling training that makes one a celebrated athlete, the abiding interest he has in it by his aptitude are well known. They are within the reach of everyone. In the earliest days, one can see the athlete has made a choice of it. Human choice enables it. This is a truth not seen. Not any eternal endowment, a native unique inheritance, but a conscious choice and a willing training make one an athlete.

6. Mother speaks of a country girl learning opera dance which enabled her native intelligence to grow.

7. For those who have lived in India and USA, it will be OBVIOUS that NOT any great inborn trait, but the unceasing work the American puts in is what makes him affluent.

8. We can train ourselves; we can work hard and attain the same results.

9. Two hundred years ago it was seriously believed that education is not for all. Today we cannot seriously put it to any audience.

10. Eliza Doolittle did hard work and did it non-stop. Those who have resorted to consecration, silent will, hourly consecration, meditation etc., know it is very hard INNER work. The question is, are you ready for such inner work?

11. Schools educate, cultured families instruct in values, cities are universities, in the USA there is an atmosphere of learning which dropouts, low families, rustics, and Indians do not have. Mother brings the school, family, city, and advanced society in the shape of Her atmosphere. The choice is ours. Once we make that choice of progress, progress is inevitable.

12. Not only computer. Examine a small company of ten or fifty years standing. They would not have used other technologies of earlier decades. To FULLY use all available technologies is a choice.

13. In a fast growing big company available capital will be carefully utilised. Each dollar will earn more than in a small company. We never look at it that way. It is equally true of Time. It is so with energies. Often we see in big companies small men do great work. They say, "Give us anyone. The culture and system of our company makes him do more." It never strikes them that Time, Space, energy, systems, knowledge, Training, Information, Money, organisation, Decision-making, Values, Thinking, Creativity, Innovation, Experimental skill, Adaptation of means to ends, and every individual and social resource is available infinitely and we infinitely disregard their existence. Man does not make one choice. He constantly makes choices. He makes a bunch of choices all the time. We call it preference, nature, culture, karma and what not.

- What is true of computer is true of a hundred other things.

- What is true of every aspect and component is true of computer.

  • Is it not true that the Infinite is not there up in heaven, but inside the finite? Have not the atom, gene, DNA and chromosome shown it?
  • When the family fosters a value, the school instills a discipline, the environment demands a behaviour, we cannot afford to be left behind. We learn values, skills, attitudes, culture. That way we are a follower, a member of the collectivity, the crowd. We are not pioneers. Mother needs pioneers in evolution. I ask for pioneers in psychology. Why, why do we look around, why do we wait to be told, to follow another? Why not look inside each thing for possibilities, why not look inside, why not start yourself?
  • The above knowledge, aptitude, attitude, initiative, willingness for WORK is luck.
  • Take any work and pore over it. Think deeply and see what more, what more can be done?
  • There is always endlessly more to be done. Here you will see the role of selfishness, ill will, and negative opinions. They help you to close. Whereas Selflessness, Good will, positive attitude endlessly open up human resourcefulness.
  • The truth is, man NEVER uses the opportunities or his own endowments fully. He uses them as it suits him at a given moment. Computer is of these times. This truth, its force, its full potential, its endless power must be seen by the mind as conception, felt by the vital as perception, received by the body as sensation. Try it in Time, energy. You will see they GROW on their own. Are they not a product of your attitude? Give a better attitude and it will show itself.
  • Computer computes a million times faster than the human calculation. It does so in hundreds of such operations. It is obvious in all these places TIME is saved that many times. For those who use the computer, it is obvious that they save that much money in these operations. The natural conclusion is the profit of the company should rise several million times. But no, this is not the fact. What then is the missing factor or factors?
  • The factors are three-fold:

- Companies even in the US do not employ computers that exhaustively.

- When they are used, they are used as an external convenience that does not touch the main organisation of the company.

- There is a stout resistance to computerization and to its consequent progress.

  • A telegram that travels in three minutes over 300 miles takes two hours to be delivered at home from the post office. When fast technologies are used, organisation must change accordingly until the result reaches the end. Otherwise, an enormous gain is cancelled by a small lapse which is then institutionalized forever.
  • By introducing computer, enormous partial gains are made which are inimical and different from the organisational culture. Without appropriately changing the psychology of the organisation at those points, the full value of the computer will remain unutilized.
  • In the telegraph office, messages are still hand delivered. Messengers who do not have their own vehicles still go on foot. There is no arrangement for the messengers to use a moped. Nor is the phone fully utilized, as a law, to deliver the message. In the USA also, this phenomenon of not utilizing technologies of 1960 or 1930 by LAW in several areas is there for one reason or another.  They are the bottlenecks.
  • People do not understand the privilege of being Mother's devotees. She is the technology of Supramental consciousness in the causal plane reaching us through the subtle plane making Her power of creating the worlds for us to be Her instruments and fields. She has a direct link with all of us and answers our calls. We call Her for small issues. Her technology is available to all the devotees, when they know it and are able to avail of it willingly.
  • Think what one's inner psychological organisation would need to be in order to use Mother fully.
  • We do not know the value of computer technology, then how are we to know Mother?  We know computer as a fast convenience. We do not know the organizational value of the computer.

- Computer is an organisation by itself.

- We must put it at the centre and adjust the whole organisation to it.

- Unless the earlier technologies are fully used, this is not possible.



story | by Dr. Radut