My business is a little behind in making use of productivity tools, and while we don't want to be cutting edge, we do want to be efficient. How should we go about selecting the right technologies out of everything that's available?
This is a great question, following Kevin Rudd's comments on productivity building this week.
Welcome to the dilemma every business owner faces when selecting tools for the trade. Every trade has tools, and every tool comes in a range of qualities. When it is a broom with a head and handle it is pretty simple to select the right one. But when you get to a power drill where the working parts are hidden inside, it starts to become more difficult.
I know a low-grade handyman who buys cheap Chinese hand tools, and if they blow up he simply replaces them. Ultimately, he can buy three of the cheap tools for the price of a good one. But a tradie who uses his power tools all day knows that a factor of three is not enough, as he could go through three in a week and his quality tools will last him months.
In IT, the choices are even more complex because it is not as black and white as 'it works' or 'it's broken.' There are a few factors that affect usability, including:
- Functionality / fit to purpose
- Complexity / ease of use
- Stability
- Price
- Quality of support
- Level of integration with other tools
Add to this the fact that each of these factors sits on a sliding scale, so as one slides up the scale to 'good' the others, such as price, slide towards 'expensive.'
The solution to this dilemma lies in research. I recently sought an application for my iPhone to view my modest share portfolio. It is not a big portfolio, so I didn't want to spend a lot of time or money on the research. I looked for the best free application and found Bloomberg was highly recommended. It turned out to be a good tool, but did not keep a tally of my holding – just a list of the companies that showed current price and change. So I had to look further and pay just over $8.00 for a tool that met my purposes. The time that went into this research was over an hour.
When I wanted a more common app like weather, I just asked one of my techs in my office and two minutes later had the solution downloaded for under $3.00.
The moral of the story is that you can put more time into your research than the solution costs, and even then end up with the wrong product based on that research, and be forced to try again. When we are talking business apps, rather than iPhone apps, this is an expensive proposition.
Clearly we need to go back a step and look at the strategic approach.
First, figure out what business functions you want to improve productivity in. Questions here to consider are:
- Where will you get the quickest financial gains in your business?
- Can you group a few of these gains together and solve them with one piece of software or one set of infrastructure?
- Will the cost of developing the solution be returned in a reasonable time frame?
- Are there better technologies that will solve a broader range of problems?
- How will the solution integrate with other aspects of the business such as sales, marketing, production and finance?
Once you have answered these internal questions, it is time to look to the market place. Here you will do well to find a guide who knows the pathways to reduce the time you spend in the wilderness, and to ensure you get to the end of your path without wasting time and money on a solution that won't work.
Be warned that there are many businesses out there that have spent many thousands of dollars on applications for internal use that never got used because the staff rejected them the day they were delivered. I've seen several businesses invest millions of dollars in fully customised CRM systems that ended up taking years to implement due to negative – and therefore slow – uptake. These businesses could have easily plugged into one of the many CRM systems in the cloud, and saved themselves a huge amount of time and money.
So, once you have a guide who really understands the needs of your business, double check their advice and ensure you'll get a clear ROI. Only then will you be able to progress with a solution that will truly help your business to grow.
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