Stop wasting your money on technology!

Stop wasting your money on technology!

Having worked in the IT industry for over 12 years, I was in the thick of the "dot-com" boom and subsequent crash. It was amazing to see our suppliers frothing at the mouth after we purchased millions of dollars of their equipment. They were a never-ending source of hype; they told us we were going to be a billion-dollar company...we were the first in the world...we were bleeding-edge technology. We were going to float. We were going to be rich....And it never, ever, happened.

Why?

The thrust of technology and its marketing at that time was all about the technology and very little (if anything) about how the technology was going to benefit your business' bottom line. To make matters worse, much of the marketing was based on fear; if you don't use our technology, you'll be left behind and your business will fail to remain competitive.

While much of the technology hype has disappeared with the dot-coms, vendors and suppliers are still keen to sell you their wares, albeit dressed up with inflated or possibly unrealistic returns. At least they are marketing the benefits to your business, instead of "technology for technology's sake"...now, that's the waste of money.

Do my IT systems support my business objectives?

Since IT is so critical to your business' activity, the need to identify the real benefits of technology investment is especially important. If the technology is not providing you with increased revenues, or driving down the costs of your operations, what's the point?

When considering a new technology investment, you need to consider the following critical questions:

1. Will this investment enable me to increase revenues?
2. Will this investment enable me to reduce costs?
3. Will this investment enable me to serve my customers better?
4. Will this investment enable me to be more competitive?

Companies are gradually learning that technology is not a panacea. Aligning people, processes and systems is essential to achieving the expected return on your IT systems investment.

Cracking a walnut with a sledgehammer.

We've all heard the familiar story; businesses spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars on hardware and software only to find that they could have solved their problem with a much more cost effective solution. This is commonly called the "cracking a walnut with a sledgehammer" syndrome.

This situation is usually a result of poorly defined objectives, trying to solve a "perceived" problem (rather than a real one), or just plain ignorance.

Take for example, internet security. How much technology do you think you need to adequately protect your network from outside hackers, and your critical business information from destruction by viruses?

To have adequate protection from the nasties on the internet, you really only need two critical pieces of "cyber defence". These would include;

1) a good firewall solution, and
2) good anti-virus protection that is updated daily.

However, once these simple objectives are achieved, many organisations continue to implement more technology, and ignore other essential factors such as policies and procedures or application security, none of which need expensive boxes or software to fix. A significant proportion of spending on information security is poorly targeted and ineffective.

In a nutshell

So, what's the upshot? Stop wasting money on technology that does not meet your business objectives. If the technology does not enable you to generate more revenue, drive down costs, increase your competitiveness in your marketplace, or is not used to it's full potential, then it's a waste of money.

If you are interested in discovering ways in which you can align your existing or future technology needs with your business operations, please contact us for a no obligation, free assessment

Newpath IT - Business Powered Technology

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