Nowadays, technology has come to play a fundamental role in almost every business. Businesses utilise technology in a number of ways and some even rely quite heavily on their IT in their everyday functioning. Because of our increased reliance on technology, many businesses are now making IT an integral part of their wider business strategy, recognising the long-term gains that strategic investment in technology can present.
How does your business view IT?
As a rule of thumb, your business can handle its IT in two ways: via a reactive approach, or via a proactive approach. A “reactive” approach to IT is just that: it’s reacting to problems as they happen, but not necessarily taking any further steps in order to ensure that problems do not arise in future. On the other hand, a “proactive” approach to IT is much more forward-thinking and aims to deal with problems before they happen.
Generally speaking, a reactive approach to IT is to look backwards, into the past, asking, “How do we deal with this thing that’s already happened?” Conversely, a proactive approach to IT is to look forwards, into the future, and ask, “This thing might happen, so how can we take steps to ensure that it doesn’t?”
Again, generally speaking, a company whose approach to IT is reactive will most likely view IT as a cost, and they will probably spend as little on it as they can get away with, which tends to be simply putting out fires as they happen. On the other hand, a business whose approach to IT is proactive is more likely to view IT as an investment, focusing on the ways in which this investment might benefit the business in the long-term.
Because of this, it’s much more likely that a company with a proactive approach to IT will be reaping the benefits of technology as a result of investment, a long-term strategic mindset and the integration of IT into the wider business strategy.
Why be proactive? The benefits of viewing IT as an investment
The benefits of a proactive approach to IT are many-fold. Increased investment and long-term strategic thinking with regards to business technology can put a company in fantastic stead for the years ahead, as well as presenting a number of further benefits. So, what are the advantages of long-term investment in IT?
Moving with the times
We are living in an increasingly techy society and many businesses are already finding the repercussions of this to be inescapable. We are getting to a stage where a certain level of IT investment will be necessary purely to keep up, both with the demands of your customers/clients and the fact that your competitors are probably investing heavily in their IT, too. However, with clever, strategic investment in IT, a business can position itself one step ahead of this trend, utilising technology in ways as yet untapped by their industry or market.
Staying one step ahead
As we’ve just mentioned, technology can be invaluable in making sure that a company is always one step ahead. This needn’t just be in terms of competitive advantage, however, but can also relate to a number of internal factors, such as business processes. For example, investment in IT can ensure that, rather than just fixing things when they break, steps are taken to ensure that things don’t break in the first place. This can save companies huge amounts of time and money by reducing downtimes and negating the need to fork out huge sums of money to get things fixed ASAP in a crisis situation.
Increasing efficiencies and lowering costs
Finding and utilising the right technology for your business can increase efficiencies and streamline business practices. This, in turn, can lower operational costs; some technology, especially in instances of the automation of certain tasks, can save businesses money as this automation lessens the need for man-power in certain tasks, thus freeing up staff resources to be focused on other projects.
Keeping your business safe
In today’s society, cybercrime is more of a threat than ever before. Cybercrime is now organised crime’s number one earner and their methods of attacking your business are only getting more diverse and harder to defend against. This means that investment in IT is becoming essential in order to successfully protect your business, your data, your customer’s/client’s data, and so on. What’s more, as a cyber criminal’s portfolio is only expanding and evolving, a business’s Cybersecurity must evolve too, constantly adapting in order to counter new threats. The average cost of a successful attack against a business is $7.35 million and, because of this, 60% of SMBs go out of business within six months of a data breach. Investment in Cybersecurity is no longer an option; it’s a necessity.
How does a business know what IT to invest in?
Software and programmes
There are a number of programmes and pieces of software out there that, for minimal investment, could save a business great deals of time and money. One example of this is cloud accounting software. Cloud accounting software doesn’t cost the earth, but can save businesses huge amounts of time and money as they are able to seamlessly scan receipts and invoices and upload them to the cloud.
When it comes to investing in software and programmes, the trick is finding the right combination of products to enhance the business and not ending up with a million different pieces of software, which would only cause great deals of confusion at extreme cost to the business.
Software as a Service
Nowadays, software and programmes are increasingly being deployed via the cloud, rather than as an on-premise solution. This is thanks to the IT industry’s move towards XaaS (“anything as a service”). The term “XaaS” refers to the delivery of anything as a service. It recognises that the vast number of products, tools and technologies that vendors now deliver are delivered to users as a service over a network, typically the internet, rather than being provided locally or on-site within an enterprise.
When selecting and deploying software in your business, the as-a-service model can cut costs and simplify IT deployments. With every additional cloud service, a company can shed pieces of its in-house IT infrastructure, leading to fewer servers, hard drives, network switches, software deployments and so on. Because of this, the move towards Software as a Service (SaaS), or anything as a service for that matter, should be considered in any business’s long-term IT strategy outline.
Storage
The way in which a business stores and backs up its files, data, customer information and so on is a hugely important consideration in any IT strategy and when deciding on how to invest in IT going forward.
There are a number of reasons for this; one is the increase in the popularity of flexible working. As a business may start to see more of its staff working remotely, it will need to be sure that the sharing of information is seamless, such that these team members are able to work just as effectively from any remote location as they are from their main place of work. Here, a business may wish to take advantage of the increases in cloud storage, allowing users to access files from anywhere with an internet connection.
Another reason for an organisation to reconsider the storage of its data is the aforementioned rise in cybercrime. In a world where cybercriminals are more determined to steal your data than ever before, businesses must be constantly reviewing their storage, upgrading servers and investing in increased data security in order to ensure that their data, and their clients’ and customers’ data, is secure.
Man power
An organisation may also wish to consider investing in the people who will manage and advise on any future IT strategy or investment, whilst also ensuring that the business’s technology runs smoothly on a daily basis. When it comes to investing in IT man power, the choice between an internal team and outsourced support is a hotly debated one.
The importance of an IT strategy
Any investment in IT, in order to be successful, needs to be well thought out. This usually happens via the development of an IT strategy, which is increasingly becoming intertwined in the wider business strategy.
In order for a company’s approach to technology to be truly “proactive”- forward-facing, looking to the future – it must handle investment and planning well into the long term. This way, the company will always have a plan in place in terms of dealing with any problems that may arise and adapting to societal and technological changes. A well thought-out, long-term IT strategy helps to ensure that both money and resources can be allocated, in the most efficient way possible, to the projects that will bring the greatest possible benefit to the business. Because of this, an IT strategy is essential to ensuring ROI when investing in IT for your business.
In many ways, your IT strategy is no different to any other business strategy, but the planning and implementation process behind it can vary somewhat from your usual business strategy. A good IT strategy does not simply chart its own path, but it charts the paths of every other department along with this. For example, if a company’s marketing and sales department is handling an increasing amount of customer data, an IT strategy can lay out the means by which they will handle this, either by upping data storage on site, moving to the cloud, or boosting the capabilities of the data analytics department. Should these data storage or analysis facilities prove to be insufficient, a strategy can be devised either to shore them up internally or to look for a qualified IT consultant that the project can be outsourced to.
IT strategy, therefore, is not just a matter of technological solutions but must think in terms of business goals and opportunities and function hand-in-hand with the wider business strategy.
Whose job is it to create and implement the IT strategy?
Many companies, even if they are in complete agreement that they need an IT strategy, can never quite agree on just whose responsibility it should be to create, implement and manage it. If that company has an IT director who feels comfortable presenting to the board on long-term, strategic direction, then great, but if not, who should this job fall to?
Despite some debate concerning whose responsibility this should be, companies can generally agree on one thing: they ought to be sure that they’re assigning an expert. Business IT can be so complicated that only a true technology expert will be able to handle the job. Additionally, however, this person will need to be an expert in business strategy creation, which is where many internal IT teams fall down. Because of this, many businesses choose to outsource the development, implementation and management of their IT strategy to a third party.
How can a business ensure ROI?
Making the decision to set aside funds to be invested in business technology is a big deal, and so any company doing so will want to be sure that it is doing everything it can in order to see a return on this investment. Choosing to invest in something is one thing, any business can do that, but ensuring a return on that investment? That’s a whole other matter.
Like all investments, scepticism surrounding ROI is what stops many companies from investing in their IT in the first place, leaving them firmly planted in the “reactive” category.
One key piece of advice for any company wishing to ensure ROI on IT is this: developing your business technology can never be a one-off task. Technology is unique when compared with other business resources in that it evolves at an exponentially higher pace. This means that a company cannot simply carry out a one-off task of creating and implementing and IT strategy and then sit back and relax, knowing that everything is taken care of. In order to ensure ROI, business technology must be constantly monitored, measured, evaluated, updated, monitored, measured, and so on.
For some companies, ROI on IT can feel like far too much responsibility to shoulder in-house. For this reason, as we mentioned earlier, many companies feel far more comfortable outsourcing this responsibility to the experts: a designated team of IT strategy professionals.
At EPX Technical Services, not only do we have professionals on hand to handle any day-to-day queries and issues, but we have a team of dedicated IT strategy experts, with ample experience in helping businesses to benefit from technology in the long-term, weaving IT into the wider business strategy, creating efficiencies, lowering costs and exploiting opportunities to aid business development.
EPX Technical Services – IT Strategy Experts
EPX has recently been awarded Small Business of the Year at Staffordshire Chambers Business Awards 2019. For advice on how investment into a long-term IT strategy could benefit your business, contact the experts at EPX Technical Services on 01785 878311, or email info@epx.co.uk.
