Member Article

Technology Research

How many people in your office have the latest mobile phones or handheld computers? Do you find that clients pull out expensive flashy gizmo’s at meetings for no reason at all? Recent studies by Agile Group found that 23% of business people within the region consider themselves technophobes; whilst a staggering 71% buy fancy expensive mobile phones and other technology just to keep up with the times.

We live in a world whereby technology moves faster than our steps and it causes us to constantly learn about new technologies that have been put in place, designed to improve the efficiency and effectiveness of businesses. But the research suggests that we don’t want to constantly see improved technology and that we would much rather be happy with our ‘retro brick sized mobile phones’.

Director of Agile Communications Gavin Scotchbrook was astounded at the results the research brought back and instantly launched a scheme to combat people’s reluctance to upgrade their technology. “Our market research shows that business people within the North East don’t necessarily want to always be buying the latest iPhone or BlackBerry but they feel they have to to keep up with the times and create that professional image of themself and their company”. Perception would suggest that these opinions are primarily from those of an older age and perhaps struggle to keep up with technology developments. Agile employee David Elvis, 22, went on to add “there have been several times I’ve gone to add someone’s contact details into my mobile phone and have ended up doing something completely different to what I wanted. I upgraded to my current phone simply because it was recently launched and had all the latest features on it; realistically I’m not going to use half of these”. These opinions are echoed throughout the region of business people of all ages.

Gavin Scotchbrook launched the new campaign to bring back old model mobile phones to businesses. “Why should we have to use the latest mobile phones just because marketing and advertising says we need to?” Agile Communications are offering businesses the chance to buy an industry standard Nokia 2330 for as little as £9.99 a month. “This handset has no fancy features and brings the user back to the days of when they got their first mobile phone. So far we’ve had an excellent response; clearly proving how accurate our research was.”

Although Agile are a technology and communications specialist, they argue that there is a consensus for technology to slow down and allow businesses to catch up. “We wouldn’t have launched the scheme if we didn’t think it would work”. Early signs from this suggest Agile are on to a winner.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by David Elvis .