Take Heed: 3 Tips For Making Technology Changes In Your Organization

The purpose of technology is to make our lives better and more convenient. The same goes for technology in business. So, as the you look towards options to enhance the performance of your organization, I would like to offer a few technology tips and some thoughts on what you should consider before embarking on technology changes.‍

Tip #1: Prepare Your Organization For Change

‍There is no amount of technological advancement that can overcome our very human and natural resistance to change. In my experience, technology projects seldom fail because the solutions fail to work as advertised, but rather because of a failure in leadership to act. Before adopting any new technology, understand that the project is fundamentally about change to the way people in your organization perform their work. Projects affect business processes, systems, and people. You must be willing to champion these projects by communicating with and involving the people who are affected by the change. Ignoring this reality results in systems that never get used, or are used ineffectively by people who did not ‘buy-in’ to the vision.

‍Tip #2: Calculate the ROI

‍It may sound like a fairly standard business practice to consider cost/benefit and return on investment when making a decision, but you'd be surprised by how often this analysis is overlooked. Technology has to create leverage by making life for you or your employees easier, although these benefits are often hard to measure. It is absolutely essential for you to determine what a technology solution means to your team in terms of money, time or hassle saved. Does the solution increase productivity, so that you can do more with less? Does the solution create time for your team to focus on more valuable initiatives? Does it help you close more business deals? Does it mitigate risks that could have significant tangible or intangible losses? If you can't answer yes to these questions and attach numbers to these answers, avoid justifying a purchase solely on the promise of its bells and whistles.

‍Tip #3: Seek Help

‍Whether you're the CIO of a large enterprise or the owner of small home-based business, it is important to take an inventory of the skills, knowledge and bandwidth available within your organization that will be necessary to effectively execute on a technology project. If it turns out that you will be deficient in any of those areas, you'll need to revise your plans or seek external help. It's always appealing to go it alone when you consider the additional cost, but I would argue that getting it done right is better than simply getting it done. Many a project has gone up in flames due to an unwillingness to incorporate skilled consultants or by forcing a project onto an overburdened IT staff. We have IT services technicians in Miami who are skilled at providing support and we offer managed services plans that can help you execute technology changes in your organization.