IndustryWeek is reporting on new research that shows a direct correlation between IT investments and productivity gains here.

The report says that Information technology is worth $2 trillion annually to U.S. economy. If you’ve been following the economic news lately you’ve probably seen concerns being raised about the drop-off in productivity gains the last couple of quarters. The impact of productivity gains on the economy is profound.

I’ve actually seen our customers realize productivity gains through the use of our software and by developing competencies in Response Management. How? Well, if you look at what most companies do today to respond to changes throughout their supply chain, you’ll find incredibly inefficient processes consisting of a lot of people, paper and tools (most frequently the tools of choice are email and spreadsheets). I’ve heard numerous stories of how many people-hours were wasted trying to scramble to respond to a last minute customer order change or an unexpected supply disruption.

The numbers add up quickly when you think about the number of people that need to get involved to figure out the right course correction to make to respond to these situations. It may require key front-line people in customer service, planning, scheduling, materials, outsource management, demand planning, etc. to bring their unique knowledge and domain expertise to the situation to understand what options are available and what the impact of proposed actions would be.

Through the proper use of technology, companies can increase productivity in responding to these unexpected changes and provide significant top and bottom-line performance improvements at the same time. Technology can empower these front-line decision makers with the information and tools they need to collaborate on action alternatives and analyze their impact to pick the right course correction to make.

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