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Starting
Up? How to Assess Your Technology Needs So you’ve
made the big decision to open your own business, and be your own boss. Congratulations!
Dealing with banks, office space and supplies, staffing up, business
registration, government filings - it can all be overwhelming and confusing the
first time around, but necessary when opening your new business. You
may also be spending a great deal of time developing marketing strategies to create
business awareness. All very important tasks to make your business as successful
as you’ve pictured it. But also, and what many don’t realize,
is howimportant it is to develop a technology strategy.
Depending on the nature of your business, your technical environment can be the
cornerstone of your business’ success. Taking some time to carefully
plan the manner in which your business will utilize technology can save you time,
money and headaches down the road. Easy for us to say. You
may be asking “Where do I start”? “How do I know what I need”,
“How much is it going to cost me”? While each business
has its unique requirements, in order to determine them there are some typical
questions that when answered, can help you identify what you need.
From our experience in working with other startup companies, most
owners come to us with little understanding of what they need.
By answering the questions in the sections below, you can develop a technology
strategy for your business which will in turn, help determine what investments
you need to make in products and services to support your business’ needs.
| SIZE OF BUSINESS |
What is the size
and structure of your business? - How many employees will need
access to your technology?
- How many locations / offices will your employees
be working from? (i.e. home, satellite offices)
|
| BUSINESS
TRANSACTION CYCLE |
Map
out the sales / service cycle and determine where you plan on using technology
during the cycle. Identify any areas where you will be using external service
providers (i.e. logistics / couriers, marketing companies, etc. - Marketing
process
- Proposals / quotations
- Delivery
- Billing and collection
|
| INDUSTRY SPECIFIC
APPLICATIONS |
| Are
there any industry specific applications that you need? Examples:
- Time and billing software
- Bookkeeping and tax preparation software
- Design
applications
- Voice recognition software
- Document template software
- Inventory
/ asset management
- Broadcast faxing
|
| INDUSTRY
SPECIFIC HARDWARE |
| Are
there any industry specific hardware tools that you need? Examples:
- Bar scanner
- Plotters
- Audio / visual recording
- Point
of sale devices
|
| OFFICE
PRODUCTIVITY SOFTWARE |
| What
office productivity tools do you require? Examples: - Word
processing
- Database management
- Spreadsheets
- Presentation
software
- Contact management
- Calendar
- E-mail
- Desktop
publishing
- Accounting / bookkeeping
|
| PRINTING
NEEDS |
What
are your printing needs? (hard and soft copies) - What is the
anticipated volume in printing?
- Do you frequently need to print multiple
copies of large documents?
- Are there seasonal peaks in printing requirements?
- What
is the anticipated volume of faxes being sent and received?
- Do you require
scanning capabilities so that documents can be e-mailed or archived?
|
| COMPUTERS
|
What type
of computer best meets each employee’s needs? - Do any
employees have mobile computing requirements? (Laptops, PDA’s, PC tablets,
etc.)
- Are there any unique employee requirements for monitors? (i.e. 21-inch,
dual monitors)
|
| DATA
INTEGRATION |
| Do
multiple systems need to communicate with each other? Will the same
information be required in multiple applications? - Customer contact
information needs to be accessed by e-mail and accounting software.
- Inventory
data needs to be accessed by accounting software and customer database.
|
| DATA STORAGE AND
ARCHIVING |
| What
are your requirements for storage and archiving of the company data and documents?
Do contractual or legal obligations require that you save documents
or data for a specific period of time, i.e. - Faxes
- E-mails
- Contracts
(signed and draft)
- Correspondence
- Proofs
|
| INTERNET ACCESS
|
How does my company
intend on using the Internet in day to day business? - Do I want or need
a website?
- What is the purpose of the website?
- Relaying information
about my company and its services?
- Completing sales transactions?
- Discussion
boards?
- Do all my employees need internet access?
- Do
I want to restrict access to particular types of internet sites from my employees?
(i.e. gambling, job search, adult)
- Do my employees need e-mail access?
- 0What
type of e-mail and web-site address do I want? i.e. www.MyCompany.com or www.[my
internet service provider].com/[my company].
|
| TELECOMMUNICATIONS
|
| What are
my telecommunication requirements? Do I Need: - Mobile phones
- Pagers
- Wireless
e-mail device
- Text messaging
- Voice-mail
|
| DETERMINING DEPENDANCY
ON TECHNOLOGY |
How
long can my business be without a particular technical device or service before
affecting the business negatively? - Phone / Fax
- Internet
access (sending / receiving e-mails)
- Website availability
- Access
to my business data via desktops and laptops
| Once
completing this process you will have a clear vision of the relevance technology
will play in your overall business success. Now you’re
ready to sit down with a reliable computer professional (such as the Technical
Action Group) that can help guide you through the process of choosing each component
of your technical environment based upon your needs, budget, and dependency on
each of these components. By having a clear vision of the importance
of each component in your business, you’re better able to focus your investments
and develop a plan to include redundancies where required so that the loss of
functionality in one area, doesn’t cripple your entire business.
With professional guidance, you can be rest assured that you’re not
buying more than you need, or not enough, and therefore not wasting your money
in either case. An important factor in selecting a technology
professional to help make your technology plan a reality, is to find one that
can not only give advice in setting up, but also perform the initial setup, and
provide ongoing maintenance and support. Our experience has shown
that the time invested in planning a comprehensive technology strategy is well
worth it. By doing it right the first time, you reduce the likelihood of
spending “good money after bad” by having to upgrade or make changes
to a technical environment that is not working the way it should and needs to,
for your business. ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Joseph Stoll is the
founder and president of The Technical Action Group Inc. (TAG) that helps small
to medium-sized companies that depend on computer systems to conduct their business.
By TAG assuming the burden of managing their technology and keeping all systems
running at their optimum, these companies can stay focused on their core business.
For more information please visit
http://www.TechnicalActionGroup.com
or email JStoll@TechnicalActionGroup.com
.
NOTE: You may “reprint” this article online as long as it remains complete
and unaltered (including the “ABOUT THE AUTHOR” information), and send a copy
of the reprint to
JStoll@TechnicalActionGroup.com
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