Four Steps to Leverage Technology and Fuel Business Growth
The way you leverage technology produces dramatically different results in company growth.
My company is a Managed Service Provider, or MSP. As an MSP, we manage computer networks for businesses in the New York Metro area.
Our typical client is a business with at least 15 computers, that embraces technology to excel and compete. We have many clients, and our involvement gives us an insider’s perspective on how technology is harnessed in their businesses. Based on our personal experience, as well as observations at our clients, one thing is sure.
The way you leverage technology produces dramatically different results in company growth.
As an IT company, you would think that we have all the latest products and technologies to automate everything we do, right? I’m happy to say that today, this is pretty much the case, but it wasn’t always this way.
Years ago
Years ago, Tarrytech had several disjoint products and manual processes for our core business functions including time tracking, ticketing, antivirus management, and client documentation.
We used spreadsheets for ordering and product procurement, and manually sent out paper invoices. This was the way that we started, and although it got the job done, it was very inefficient, didn’t scale well, and limited our growth.
As a business owner who wanted to grow quickly, I knew that I had to make some changes! I knew that we needed to leverage technology, but also understood that buying the latest “shiny gadget” wasn’t the only part of the solution.
Although you can’t address every part of your business with technology, you can greatly impact your results by selecting the right technology, and building processes around its use. Replacing the core systems at Tarrytech to fuel growth and efficiency took a lot of blood, sweat, maybe some tears, and certainly a dedicated effort.
However, having gone through this process, I’d like to share some of the lessons that I’ve learned, as well as offer some encouraging results.
If you’d like to leverage technology to fuel growth and efficiency in your company, follow these four steps:
1. Identify Your Core Processes
As a business, what do you do?
Do you need the ability to track client issues and vendors? Do you have inventory? Do you ship product? How do you track your payments or send out invoices?
Clearly this is a very short list of items that you might need to perform in your company. However, it illustrates the type of questions you need to ask to help you identify the components you can address with technology.
Once you have a complete list of your core processes, it helps to identify which are the least efficient, most painful or most labor intensive to complete. These are the processes that you will want to prioritize when implementing a new solution.
Depending on the size of your organization, you won’t be able to turn the ship around overnight, and having a roadmap to identify the order of importance will maximize your results.
2. Research Solutions
There’s lots of hardware and software solutions that might be a fit for your business, so how do you know which is the right fit?
I found that the best way to begin your research is to speak with other businesses who have already implemented some of these products. What do they like about them? What is working, and what are the product shortcomings?
Industry events and publications are also great for this type of research, and you might find that there is a ubiquitous solution in your industry.
Next- Technology steps #3 and #4 and Takeaway
