Running a business in present day without taking advantage of the wide variety of technology at your disposal simply amounts to short-changing yourself. If you want your business to be able to keep up with the competition and deliver services with the level of efficiency your customers demand, you need to make use of the right type of technology. But if you want technology that can deliver the sort of results you require, you need to first draw up a technology plan.
With a technology plan, you can easily decide what will work best for your business, such as choosing between managed cloud hosting and a dedicated server. To go about developing your technology plan the right way, you simply need follow the below steps;
- Assess technology resources of your business
Evaluate your current technology resources in order to determine what is lacking and what new technology you need to make your organization more efficient.
- Identify and prioritize current technology requirements
After identifying what technology your business is lacking, the next step is to recognize what your company’s future needs are and prioritize them accordingly. Each companies technology requirements often differ but typically contain the following;
- Need for new software and updates
- Need for personnel training or retraining. Hiring of new technology personnel
- Replacing and upgrading of old equipment
- Improved computer networking
- Improved internet presence
- Expansion of online marketing
- Improving or strengthening the business website
- Reviewing policies concerning the use of computers and other technologies
- Implementing backup systems and security procedures
Whatever is on your list needs to be prioritised in the order of their importance. This is crucial especially for instances when your company’s budget is unable to satisfy the entire list at once.
- Budgeting
You need to build a budget that makes provisions for the financing and implementation of your technology plan. The budget should cover acquiring the necessary technology as well as training staff to use said technology.
- Set up a timeline
After budgeting, you need to set up a defined timeline that will illustrate how long it will take to put in place necessary technologies and launch them. The timeline should have some flexibility so as to be able to accommodate unplanned for events, but be inflexible enough to ensure it is actually adhered to.
- Financing for technology
Financing the implementation of a technology plan is rarely cheap. Thus, you need to know how exactly the technology plan will be paid for – be it from the coffers of the company, a loan, or via a grant.
- Execution of the plan
Once finances are available, the plan can be executed. But as the plan is being executed, be sure to review it in order to ensure that desired results are being attained.
Technology is no doubt essential to the modern day small business because without it, the growth of such a company can be impeded. But it is also important that a technology plan be effectively aligned with the vision statement and long term goals of a company. If not, the technology might only cost a lot of money without contributing in any way to a company’s development.