11 Outdated Things In Your Business

There was a very interesting article on The Age website today called “Ten Things Your Next Car Might Not Have” by Barry Park. In this article, Park listed a whole bunch of things that used to commonplace in our cars and are unlikely to be there in your next car.

Some of the things he listed included (30 items in total were listed):

• Wind-up windows
• Spare tyres
• Car Keys
• Owner’s Manual
• Cigarette Lighters
• CD Players
• Manual Door Locks
• Hubcaps

It got me thinking… What’s outdated in your business? Here’s eleven things you might not need in the near future…

1. Backup Hard Drives : With the rise of cloud computing, we won’t need to rely on having copies on physical drives.
2. Cables : Everything seems to be going wireless…
3. Software : Another cloud trend is to pay for usage of software that is available online. Effectively we’re renting software and not having to buy it outright anymore. We’re also paying for a lot of smaller apps rather than one big suite of products.
4. Cameras : The cameras in mobile phones are getting better and better. For the typical happy snapper this will probably be enough. No need to carry a separate device.
5. Music Players : Same applies here. We’re carrying phones that have our music on them. Or, we can wirelessly tap into our music library where ever we might me.
6. Land Line : A lot of people, including me, have ditched their fixed phone line in favour of a VOIP (phone access via the internet) connection.
7. Home Phone : Taking this one step further, a lot of people, including me, have ditched a home phone in favour of their mobile or cell phone.
8. Books : I love my books! And, I’ve recently started using Kindle for Mac and loving it. I’ll be buying less physical books in the future.
9. Book Shelves : Every office has a book shelf… maybe we won’t need them if don’t buy books.
10. Filing Cabinet : With the falling price of digital storage plus the ease of use of a digital scanner, it might be time to get rid of all that paper clogging up your filing cabinet. And, when you’re done, get rid of the cabinet too!
11. Office : Who needs an office when you don’t have books, bookshelves, paper or filing cabinets to fill them up? More work is being done in the coffice – your local coffee place. Do you really need your office?

What else can we add to this list? What are the things in your business that are outdated and about to be replaced?