Get your IT priorities together dude!
Elevate your game and get a chance to rub elbows with the big boys. IT is officially a necessary business unit worthy of a bigger budget, and a seat at the table of company executives. The importance of a relevant dedicated information technology unit is usually understated especially in the world of small business. That said, we have ten relevant issues your business may face that require technological savvy.
10. Optimization of hardware and software integration. Business processes should be focused to add value to the product or service being offered by your small business.
9. Draw from your businesses unique strengths and expand your company offerings globally. This means using the internet to level the playing field.
8. Keep your company ahead of the curve. Use customer relationship management tools to anticipate your customer’s needs and behaviors. IT accelerates this process.
7. Leveraging cloud resources is vital to your businesses success. Your IT guys live in the cloud. That is if you have an “IT Guy”.
6. Customer Relationship Management will also be a priority this year as CRM will power product and services design. Customers will demand participation in the process from end to end.
5. Social media tools will become indispensable. Simply put if you are not using social media you should just kill your business now.
4. Go digital. Keep back-ups of all data and documents. Your Information Technology Officer can insure who gets what data and insure deliverables are in the appropriate format.
3. Customers are accessing data via smartphone. Have a mobile/cellular strategy and secure or standardize it.
2. Make sure your budget for technology implementation is comparable or better than your competition. If not it can kill your business or career.
1. Use technology to quantify your data. What type of analytics will you and your organization be using measure and improve technology implementation.
I know… You’re making a three-million a year! You started with five-hundred in the bank, and you don’t need (blah, blah, and blah) to make money. The fact of the matter is that Im thinking expansion, wealth, and value. That’s what efficient, effective IT implementation does. Building a website adds value to your products and services, using facebook and other social media expands your customer base, and attaching an ecommerce unit to your business creates wealth. In 2011 to you want to make money, or build wealth?
regards
WEBSOLOGIST
