Many businesses are reluctant to make investments in their technology infrastructure and have no IT budget in place.
Which we understand! We do.
It’s confusing, intimidating, and seems like the least of important tasks you should tackle.
Which brings us to this point: What’s it costing you to NOT invest in an IT and technology budget?
If you’re running your business the same way you were a few years ago, missing on items like a technology budget everyone feels good about, then we’d argue you’re falling behind.
With rapid enhancements in technology, and your competition taking your customers because they have better IT infrastructure, it’s very possible that you could be losing tens of thousands of dollars, while not even knowing it.
How to invest in your IT and technology budget
When we talk about investing in technology, and having appropriate budgets, we’re not talking about investing money for the sake of spending money.
We are talking about investing in a stake of your business that will yield a return on investment because of more productivity, increased employee morale, new tools, and potentially more revenue generating opportunities. (Ever check the morale of an employee who’s forced to use old-school tools to run his or her department, often still involving a lot of pencil and paper?)
Consider some of these tools you could invest in – any/all of these could yield huge results for your business:
- CRM. Perhaps an improved CRM system would help your business capture more business opportunities, track customer sales life-cycles, and enhance the production of your sales and marketing teams.
- ERP or PSA software. ERP or PSA software helps run your business with things like billing, ticketing, customer orders, project management, and even time tracking of employees. But, to get this type of technology implemented inside your company, you’re going to need a technology resource to help. What’s it costing you by not having this in your business?
- SaaS and cloud solutions. Evaluate cloud based solutions, virtual computing solutions, or Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions to see if any of these provide a better long-term cost reduction, efficiency improvement, or added value for your business. Bear in mind that the technology is secondary to the business function it supports, but the technology can indeed add or subtract to the overall productivity significantly.
- Virtual technology. Technology can also be used to help reduce costs, not just increase revenue. Virtual technology is a great example of this. Why operate two or three different physical servers when you can combine the functions of three into one physical box running separate virtual computers? The hardware costs are less, energy costs are less, and the ongoing maintenance costs are less. Investing in this type of upgrade can result in reduction in long-term costs for a business.
Something that doesn’t take any particular expertise to recognize: When evaluating your budget, keep in mind that older hardware will fail more often.
That is a fact. As a rule, we tell our clients that hardware isn’t a matter of “if” it will fail, but is rather a matter of “when”.
We understand that there are upfront costs involved in making your technology infrastructure more stable and efficient, but there are also increased costs with maintaining an aging infrastructure both in terms of equipment repair and lost productivity. So, budget wisely.
Lastly, without a strong IT and technology budget in place, you’ll never uncover the real costs to your business, nor will you be able to evaluate the true cost of keeping the status quo by doing it all on your own.
We recognize that even with the above options there are so many decisionmaking points leading you one way or another operationally. That’s where an advisor could really prove invaluable.
Schedule some time with us.
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