Technology In Your Business What would happen if your computers stop working in your office? What if your phones didn’t work? How about if you had no Internet connection? If you are like most companies, your entire operation would suffer. You’d be limited in what you could do and you would be forced to watch your employees sit doing nothing waiting for the technology to start working again.
Technology has become a major component of all businesses, but it’s not often respected or treated with the same amount of attention as other areas such as Sales or Production, yet, without the technology functioning correctly, neither one of these areas would be able to work.
Protecting Your Company / Protecting your Technology
If you are like most companies, you have spent very little time thinking about what you would do if there was a fire or a flood at your office / home where you run the company. You are running with the odds that nothing bad is going to happen to you, yet the gamble is a pretty huge one. The latest statistics state that ONLY 1 out of 3 businesses would be able to survive a major catastrophe and be able to rebuild. Why? They aren’t backing up their business data offsite and they don’t have a plan that states what they are going to do (step by step) if something major was to happen. They simply don’t have a disaster recovery plan.
Since 9/11, the US Government has been encouraging businesses to think about protecting their business data and technology and put a plan together. They have even created a website devoted just to this called Ready Business . This is a very helpful resource that will help you ask the appropriate questions including:
- Do I know who to contact along with their contact information should a disaster happen?
Where is all the important business papers and is a copy stored away from the office / home?- Is the company data being backed up offsite at location at least 100 miles away from where it sits now?
Where would we go to meet to discuss getting the company running again should a disaster happen?- Does everyone know where to go to protect themselves in the case of a fire, storm, tornado, etc.?
What is the order of steps necessary to get the company restarted?
All of these questions and more will help you be prepared should something threaten the technology you use.
Choosing the RIGHT Technology for your company
The other major area that affects most companies is the process of upgrading the technology they are using. Companies DREAD the thought of having to do major technological upgrades or for that matter just replacing the old copier with a new copier / scanner. It doesn’t have to be a stressful transition if you just follow a couple of rules.
Rule 1: Does the upgrade / replacement REALLY fit your company and how you do business?
A lot of companies will get “sold” on the newest upgrade or switching from one software program to another without really looking at how the change matches the way they do business. In order for an upgrade or replacement to really help a company, it needs to provide tools and benefits that compliments how the company is CURRENTLY operating. If a company has to change their ways or procedures to operate to accommodate a new piece of technology, that is only going to make the change harder on the company and more costly. The goal should be for the new technology to create a minimum reduction in the company’s production before it starts showing benefits and increases that justify it’s purchase.
When Microsoft released its new version of Office 2007, they completely changed the way Microsoft Word, Excel, Powerpoint, etc. looked and functioned at its core level. What people had always known and been used to disappeared in a matter of minutes of an upgrade. A company that would have been following Rule 1 would have held off on the MS Office upgrade and requested it did not come loaded on any new computers they purchased until the staff had been properly trained on how to use the new version. Microsoft affected thousands of company’s productivity with their change, but those following Rule 1 weren’t affected.
Rule 2: Ease into the transition / Avoid ALL or NOTHING mentality This one is a little harder since companies will often try to do a massive upgrade or change at once to help minimize the costs with the migration. Unfortunately, they only consider the hard costs of the purchase and disregard the losses incurred from downtime and the increases in time to manufacture and do normal operations. If a company will ease into a transition and test and work with the new technology before rolling it out to everyone, often they will find the “bugs” that would have slowed everyone up and have an opportunity to get them resolved or determine a way to change the process in a minor way that resolves the issues. It also would give the company the time to see if the upgrade or change is worth it. Great sales presentations are one thing, but seeing that same technology integrated into your own company is something else. Technology in your business is something that needs to be respected and budgeted for so that it will keep your company running properly. It’s role in our businesses isn’t going to diminish but only increase and to not to acknowledge and plan for this is to make a mistake that you can not afford. Simply put, to not be willing to invest your time and resources to making sure that your technology continues to benefit you is to be sure that your competition will. Technology IS the critical cog to your company’s engine; treat it with the care and respect it deserves. Submitted by Ron Pierce
President
Trinity Solutions, Inc.
www.TrinitySolutionsinc.com
An information Techology Consulting & Support Company | 
