Executive Thought Leadership

The Smart Business Roadmap

To compete effectively today, small and medium-sized businesses need to be smarter than ever.

To compete effectively today, small and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) need to be smarter than ever. Consider the advantages of emerging technologies such as wireless IP phones, unified messaging, and videoconferencing, which are now available at affordable rates. These technologies can provide SMBs with the advantages of a smart business by helping them to increase efficiency, enhance productivity, lower costs, and improve the interactions between customers, suppliers, and employees.

But before investing in any new technology, it is important to have a smart business roadmap—a plan that matches short-term and long-term smart business goals with specific technology solutions to help meet those goals. SMBs commonly add technology only to address an immediate issue. This approach can set the stage for problems as a company grows, because without a roadmap the company may invest in the wrong solution at the wrong time, wasting money and potentially creating more issues later.

A structured, forward-looking plan is the best way to proactively ensure that the selected technology will meet the needs of the network—and a smart business. Creating a smart business roadmap takes four steps.

Step One: Decide Which Development Phase Your Business Is in Today

Is your business in its foundation, growth, or optimization phase? The answer can help you determine the core technology investments your business is likely to need.

• In the foundation phase, a small business is seeking to get established. Communicating effectively with employees, customers, and suppliers is critical, as is customer service. SMBs may be considering technology solutions such as e-mail, messaging, and Internet connectivity that can provide the easiest possible access to information while still ensuring the security of that information.
• Businesses in the growth phase are established and looking to be more efficient and cost-effective. Technology considerations may include connecting branch offices or offering workers the ability to work remotely. SMBs may also be looking to enhance their communications infrastructure with emerging technologies that provide greater operational efficiencies and cost savings.
• SMBs in the optimization phase look for differentiation from their competitors. They may be considering customer relationship management (CRM) applications, sales force automation tools, interactive Web communication, or call center applications to enhance information sharing with customers and suppliers.

Step Two: Identify Current Needs and Potential Business Challenges

Identifying your most pressing needs—and at the same time considering the future business challenges you're most likely to face—can help you specify the best technology solutions for your current business phase. Common challenges faced by SMBs in all phases of development are:

• Accelerating customer responsiveness. Customers today are Internet-savvy and more demanding than ever. You should consider solutions that can enable—or improve—your ability to deliver rapid, personalized service to customers. It is also important to examine technologies that can enhance interactions between your employees—and between them and your customers.
• Improving operational efficiencies. With limited resources, it is essential that your business operate as efficiently as possible. You should look for specific ways to increase the productivity of your staff, maximize the use of existing resources, and invest in new technology that can improve the quality of your products and services.
• Containing costs. Managing the costs of doing business requires constant attention. Whether you are considering basic e-mail or an advanced technology such as IP telephony, it is essential that the solution help you reduce costs now and in the future. Any investment you make today should be able to support you tomorrow without the need for extensive upgrades.
• Keeping data secure. Data security is as critical for SMBs as it is for large enterprises. To ward off spyware, viruses, and hacker attacks—and to ensure compliance with government regulations for customer or patient data—you must protect your network with top-notch security.

Step Three: Create a Technology Inventory

Before making any investments, do a detailed inventory of the computers, peripherals, software, networking equipment, and security solutions you already have. When possible, list the date of acquisition for each technology and solution type, as well as the support services available for them. With this information, you can more clearly see what you need and what potential acquisitions may conflict with—or duplicate—the technology you already have.

Step Four: Develop Your Smart Business Roadmap

Connect the dots between your business development phase, your current needs and potential challenges, the specific technologies you already possess, and the available solutions that can take you to your goals.

Here's an example: Your business is in the growth phase. Making information available to mobile workers is a key business need, and the challenge is finding the right mobile technology solutions. After reviewing your technology inventory, you realize that while some assets already do what's needed, you will need to purchase some new products and devices. So you research potential solutions such as wireless laptops, smartphones, and virtual private networks (VPNs), taking into account:

• Service and support. Even the best solutions can have issues, so it is important to consider the kind of service and support that is available. Don't assume you'll never need it.
• Long-term value. SMBs often try to save money in the short term, but that approach may actually cost time and money in the long term. For example, you could buy wireless laptops with minimal memory, but for about $200 per laptop you could double or triple that memory. With more memory, applications run faster and more reliably, which improves user productivity. Buying more memory up front can also lengthen the useful lifespan of the laptops.
• Number of vendors. It might save money to buy network routers from vendor A, firewalls from vendor B, and network storage from vendor C. But that means there are three vendors to deal with if something goes wrong. In the long run, it pays to purchase as many technology solutions as possible from the same vendor. And using the same vendor can also improve network stability, as the various components have been designed to work with one another.
• Others' experiences. Talk to trusted peers, partners, suppliers, friends—even competitors—to find out which technologies are working for them and which ones aren't. Ask how they dealt with unpleasant surprises.

Once all of that information is compiled, your roadmap to a smart business is complete. You are now ready to make the kinds of solid investments that will help your business be more agile, efficient, competitive, and successful.