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March 20, 2008

Making Technology A Key Part of Your Business: Six Guidelines

I have my own Six Rules for Leveraging Technology In Your Business which covers things such as:

• Email is Not CRM
• Don't Technologize a Bad Business Process
• Outsource
• Technology Is An Investment - Not A Cost
• Mobility is Critical
• Web 2.0 Is No Joke

Computer World, offers six more rules, which I think are so critical and important. In fact these rules are probably more important and a first step than my own.

They are:

• Put IT In Your Budget
• Plan Your IT Future
• Make IT Part of Management
• Take Care of the Basics
• Choose Vendor's Wisely
• Keep Learning

I would advise you to digest the six rules very carefully.

• Put IT In Your Budget
- if you are just spending money on technology with no plan, no IT plan you are wasting money and probably investing too much in the wrong areas and not enough in the right areas.
• Plan Your IT Future
- Maybe you have a 10 person office right now. Will you grow to 50 or 5,000 persons in 2 years. Plan technology purchases accordingly.
• Make IT Part of Management
- If you're making major (or minor) corporate decisions and only talking to sales, accounting and marketing (maybe HR) you're making a mistake. Keeping IT in the loop can ensure that your moves are aided by technology solutions.
• Take Care of the Basics
- There's no use giving all your employees fancy BlackBerry's if you are using Windows 98. There's no use trying to implement a CRM system if your sales team is not function. Take care of the basics and most fundamental parts of your business first.
• Choose Vendor's Wisely
- Your business will succeed or fail based on how reliable and committed to your success your vendor(s) is.
• Keep Learning
- if you've only taken the 20 minute training course in some key application and not had additional training, you're cheating yourself and not using the application or device as well as you could.

Technology is so important for the growth of your business. If you are not treating it as an important and vital asset in your businesses growth, your competition IS probably using technology in the right direction (or better than you are) and will be able to:

1. Do more with less.
2. Meet customer demands faster.
3. Be more prepared for growth.

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