I have presented a talk called “Don’t outgrow your technology” several times, and the key points are important for businesses who are starting to think about investing in technology as we move to our “new normal” working conditions.
The key points I covered were:
- Stop thinking cost. Start thinking long term value
People outgrow their technology for a variety of reasons, but one very common reason is because they’ve under-invested early on
- Invest to give you competitive advantage
Now more than ever business relies on technology – it can give you a competitive advantage. Those customers that were already using cloud technologies were able to more to working from home much more quickly and easily, giving them an advantage over their competitors.
- Improve productivity
The right technologies can increase collaboration, flexibility and automate away boring or repetitive tasks
- Attract and retains talent
Our colleagues who are entering the workplace at the start of their careers from education expect to work hard, but in return they expect to use the latest tools, work from anywhere, when they want to.
- Make your life better
Technology is a tool, use it to make work easier, and make you work less.
If you don’t take the opportunity to invest, you’re missing the opportunity to do all these things, and to ensure your business is the best it can be, which can thrive, adapt and grow.
Plan before you spend:
Before you spend any money on IT:
1.Think & Plan: Align your IT Strategy to your organisation’s goals (growth, expansion & company vision – including green policies etc)
2.Engage with an expert: (see our blog: A good consultant should.…) Find someone who’s got experience of IT and business, who can be a trusted advisor to you. As well as IT, they need to understand your business and what you’re trying to achieve – and that’s mostly not a technical conversation.
3.Look for someone with great communication skills: When people talk about technology, there can be misunderstandings about terminology – people use the same word and mean different things – they use different words to mean the same things, and the sector is riddled with jargon, impenetrable to the lay person. An independent consultant will also have a level of focus that it may be hard to achieve yourself because you’re in the business day-to-day with all the pressures that entails. And finally, they fill a gap:
- In smaller businesses, there’s often a “knowledge gap” – founders and senior staff end up making technology purchasing decisions and lack the time, headspace and overview of the market to male the best choices – and as a result often end up making the lowest of quickest choice.
- In larger business there’s a “people gap” between the board and the IT team – a good consultant can help these people talk effectively to one another.
Don’t waste money on tecnhnologies that don’t scale:
Total Cost of ownership
This a balance between your initial investment vs lifetime expenditure.
It is not just the initial purchase price but what the technology will cost to:
– support
– power consumption
– warranty or license renewal
– capacity and cost of expansion later on
– Will it need to be replaced in 3, 5, 10 years time?
You should be having these conversations before you invest.
Get your building blocks right
We fundamentally believe that in today’s world, (and this is why all our customers transitioned to working from home so easily), all you need to run a successful business is:
- A good quality, business grade internet connection
- A high speed wired & wireless network
- Commodity services in the cloud
- Server infrastructure (either on-premise, in a data centre or in the cloud)
When you have those building blocks in place, you can add more of them easily, and scale up on demand, quickly.
You can see a full copy of my presentation here.
If you would like to discuss any of the features in this blog, or take advantage of a free IT review, contact us
Tags:
