An Introduction

In our modern technologically-hyperactive society, there is a constant need to stay informed. News events come from a plethora of sources, ranging from television to cell phones and many things in between. Technology links people together across continents and allows them to interact and keep up relationships of all kinds. Families can do video chat on Skype with their relatives overseas, or a person in Cairo can become aware of Hurricane Earl rampaging through the eastern coast of the United States. Technology is unique in this.

The aforementioned reasons describe why I chose to focus this blog on happenings of the world-- it is getting smaller every day with the help of technology. But what role does technology play in the daily transactions of a large, international corporation? For starters, running a business in different countries would be a very challenging task without advanced forms of communication. Conference calls are a thing of the past. Today, people can go into a meeting and sit across the table from a group in China, for example, and feel as if they are all in the same room. 

Another very important reason why technology is necessary for international business firms is efficiency. So much more can get accomplished when people in one time zone have access to information of those in another. It really makes the business a 24/7 affair because when one group is finished working, others are still at it or just getting ready to work. With BlackBerry smartphones and the Internet in general, it is easy to reach colleagues in different parts of the world. 

Aside from communication, technology has made business transactions much more secure and quick. Account information is precise. These things make people want to invest in a firm, and is becoming less of a selling point as the technology spreads, and more of a standard.

Throughout this semester, I hope to cover all of the aforementioned aspects of technology and how the latter helps businesses around the globe operate more smoothly. I am definitely not aware of a lot of the tools that businesspeople are using or planning to use in the future, and I would like to educate myself and my readers on their benefits and downfalls.