When running a business, technology can be a double-edged sword. When it’s working effectively, technology can help you to cut costs, boost productivity, and simplify time-consuming and complicated tasks. However, when your business tech isn’t working effectively, it can cause significant issues. For many businesses, technology struggles are a part of daily life. Some companies accept that the technology they use has flaws. In contrast, others take a proactive approach to try and solve these issues to improve the use of technology in their organizations. If your business falls into the latter category, you may be wondering how to even begin addressing your tech issues. In this article, we’ll explain some of the ways you can simplify your business technology so that it starts meeting the needs of your company and delivering improved results.
Assess Your Current Business Tech
Making major changes to your business systems can lead to greater issues further down the line. While it may be tempting to abandon tech that appears to be causing issues, it’s best to first develop a greater understanding of the root of the problems. This will provide you with enough evidence to make informed business decisions about the use of technology.
Starting by evaluating the current systems your business is using is important. Consider the following:
- What tasks does the system perform?
- How much does it cost?
- When was implemented and for what reason?
- Do you have other systems that carry out the same tasks?
- What are the major pain points experienced when using the system?
You will need to seek feedback from your employees to identify the pain points associated with the system. Get them to speak honestly about their experiences using each system, and where they think improvements to it could be made.
Seek Professional Technology Support
Once you have assessed your current business systems, you may wish to seek some additional support. Trying to manage the IT side of your business alongside everything else can leave you feeling out of your depth. However, employing an IT team to support your business is likely to be too much of a financial burden.
Implementing an IT service management system, an ITSM tool, is an excellent way to make the best use of your technology and simplify the use of tech in your business. Using an ITSM system allows you to track all your IT assets in one place, protect against data loss, and manage all your systems using just one platform. This provides you with a much clearer picture of all your systems, and the ability to track and control them with ease, even when you’re away from the office.
Continually Monitor Technology Performance
Once you’ve taken steps to simplify your business technology, it’s vital that you continue to monitor its performance. Technology changes rapidly; existing systems are frequently updated, and new systems are continually introduced. So, it’s essential to ensure your business technology evolves and scales to meet the changing needs of your business as it continues to grow.