The Roadmap to Gaining Competitive Advantage within Business
Technology can be difficult to businesses. Business challenges that get put on the backburner, are often skipped over because they seem painful or expensive. But technology is truly what will set you apart and allow you to dominate your competition. Whether it's customer service, service delivery, managing staff and projects, the right technology is critical to your success. It allows your business departments and their data to be shared and brought together where insights can be gained to make decisions.
Continual Improvement and utilizing customized technology is critical to success.
Many Businesses Operate Here
Your technology has been pieced together. It's what was needed at the time. Now things seem inefficient, always breaking and everyone knows it's not working. Fun symptoms include going through IT employees, many applications yet nothing talks, things go down consistently, there's no real plan or budget for technology.
Minimal or No Foundation
No base productivity foundation for collaboration or teamwork or the centralized ability to control user logins and security.
Not Using a Business Platform
Using spreadsheets, calendar, email and accounting system to run an entire business.
Applications Don't Talk
The applications you're using don't talk to each other. This creates duplicating work, mistakes, and errors.
Or Stuck in Stagnation due to mindset
Sometimes growth gets hindered because as you're scaling up, certain aspects of your service start deteriorating or getting harder and harder to deliver. Having an outsider come and assess your business that has been successfully built over time feels wrong. Outside opinions feel like a slight instead of expert guidance. A change in mind-set is needed. Technology is an investment. Remember that technology can provide the tools to scale easily, exponentially increase margin, and contain costs.
Don't Utilize Technology
Just use email, calendars and basic files and the phone. This creates zero insight.
Built Successfully without Tech
Company was built with no technology. It will fail with no technology. Ask Sears.
No Tech Investment
Think's technology is a cost of business and not an investment.
Steps to Success: Self-Evaluation
Technology Infrastructure
Do you have a good technology foundation to build upon and scale as your business grows? If not, spending unnecessarily for on the spot upgrades will be painful.
Applications & Platforms
Is there a centralized system your business uses to manage all interactions with employees, vendors, suppliers, and customers?
Seamless Integration
All your technology should talk to each other and be easy to manage. Do you duplicate work or struggle to find data?
Correct Staffing
Do you consistently hire for the same IT position or are you limited to one person's technical knowledge?
Security/Continuity
How well can your business fend off threats and continue working if disaster or breaches happen? You don't want a security event or outage to bankrupt your company.