Small Business Dreams for Information Technology

I speak to many business people who are frustrated with technology. They see what others are getting, and would like to get it for themselves, but they don't like technology or are not comfortable with technology, therefore they get frustrated.

The technicians that are hired to do a job, take away the need for business owners to become technical, but they also take away the focus from the business.

What's the business owner to do? He/she is not comfortable with technology. The technicians speak a different language and always talk about how complex it is, and how the business person doesn't understand.

All of that is BULL! The reason that the business owner doesn't understand is that the technician is not knowledgeable enough to explain it. I have worked with technology for many years, and there is one thing that I have learned. When somebody is not very skilled, they cannot explain what they are doing. The really experienced people, understand how to explain things in meaningful terms.

As a non-technical business owner, what do you need to do?

Let's start with a dream. If you had the perfect world (for the non-technical business owner), what would you have? You would ask a business question and get an answer that you would understand. There would be no complex jargon, no "you don't understand", just simple answers to simple questions. If there was a need for learning, your supplier (internal or external), would help you learn what you need to know so that you could make the necessary decisions.

So, as a business owner, why don't you assume that this is the world that you live in? If you can't get an answer that you understand, is the technician willing to provide you with the learning, on your terms, so that you can make the proper decisions? If not, find another one. I don't mean that you have to become technical. If you have no interest in that, you shouldn't have to. The technician should be able to provide you with what you need without being a techie.

The key to all of this is focus and determination. Determination to not let technicians befuddle you with technical mumbo-jumbo.

Thry it! You might like! It works. I know it..
what would they like to see? How do they get it?

Making Information Technology simpler for small business

I spoke to a couple of small business owners last night, who complained about the lack of solutions to their business needs. Every "solution" proposed by consultants and software suppliers started with "well, in order to do this, you've got to BLAH, BLAH , BLAH". That is what the small businessman heard.

Why? The business owner saw a small problem and wanted a small solution. What he got was a complex "solution", one that involved changing his business. Most software products used by business have been developed with all of the checks and balances that are needed to make sure that the business functions as it should. This is good if the business is actually doing this. However, most are not. So the problem is that a proposal to totally restructure the way the business operates is met with resistance. The business owner sees a small benefit, while the "solution" provider wants to make sure his software is used properly.

Added to this problem is that the business owner can't articulate his problem, nor communicate what he wants to the software supplier or consultant. The software supplier sees only the software and how it "should" be used.

Most software is flexible enough to be used without all the bells and whistles. There are limitations to the benefits when this happens, and potential problems down the road. But when the owner doesn't see the problems or benefits, he/she is often unwilling to commit to the major effort to achieve it. Software suppliers often ignore all of this in their efforts to sell the software. They quote the benefits without showing the impact that it will have, nor the prerequisites to getting all of the benefits.

I have written many times about the need to understand the business process improvements expected when you install new software. While that is valid, there is a need for the business to evolve and learn what the benefits can be and identify new problems that can be solved. If the owner cannot see these problems, then there is no benefit of attempting to solve it.

I prefer and incremental or iterative approach.

1. Identify the problem as the owner sees it.
2. Outline a solution with minimal effort to solve that problem, without putting them in a box.
3. Once that is solved, look at the new data provided and how that expands the possibilities that may be available to the business.
4. Identify the new problem as the owner now sees it. More information will help to describe the past problems in new ways, requiring new solutions.
5. As the business learns, the solutions will get bigger, and the prerequisite activity will get larger. However, the business will see that incremental effort yields new benefits and be more willing to support it.

Most small businesses don't have the resources to take on a large job. They may be willing to invest in the software, but not be prepared for a major investment in staff resources and time to do what's needed for a complete makeover.

Most businesses never use all of the functionality provided by the software products that they buy. When the big bang approach is used, they will be scared off until they need major enhancements again. They will put off the pain of the big bang for a long time, maybe until it's too late.

The incremental approach makes progress regularly, gets benefits in small chunks regularly and makes it more acceptable for small business.

Can a small business afford a Chief Information Officer (CIO)?

Every business is dependent on Information Technology today, yet many small business owners are frustrated with the results that they are getting.

For any business owner that lacks experience with technology, doesn't feel comfortable with technology, or just lacks the time to properly assess the value or the needs, it can be a very frustrating experience. Often a small business will hire someone to look after it.

That someone is typically an administrator or a junior technician that loves to play or learn about technology, but doesn't understand what the business needs or how to get it. Although it takes the burden of watching over IT from the owner, the result is that the business suffers.

In large organizations, more and more businesses are hiring Chief Information Officers. In some cases, it is just a title, but the effective ones are those that understand business, understand the business outcomes that the business is looking for and does not speak in technical terms.

This type of individual will not be attracted to a small firm, for two reasons:

• The small firm cannot afford to pay them.
• The small firm will not have enough challenge for them.

What the small business owner to do? There are three choices:

• Hire a technician? This does not help the business to take advantage of technology and grow the business
• Hire a full time CIO? He can't afford it, and probably couldn't find one who will come.
• Hire a part-time CIO? This may work for the larger firms, but could still be expensive.
• Hire a Virtual CIO? What is it?

A virtual CIO has all of the skills of the full time CIO and has a focus on the business. Instead of spending full time or part-time at your site directing your effort, the Virtual CIO brings all of the skills and knowledge to your business, providing guidance, advice, coaching and support to you and your staff, helping you to become more knowledgeable and capable. This means an affordable cost, that goes down as you learn to manage this yourselves. And it comes as "just enough" to let you choose how fast you want to work, how aggressive you want to be and how much you want to pay.

Consider this as an approach to getting the results that you want at a price that you can afford.

Why CRM fails

Customer Reltionship Management projects have a high failure rate. There are many reasons for failure and most of them have nothing to do with software. A recent article on InsiderCRM describes the issues.

The key to any software project is to recognize that there are three components to success, People, process and technology, and any project that focuses solely on the technology is doomed to failure.

To start with, you must recognize that salespeople are often independent operators within a business. If they don't see the value, they won't do what you need. Other parts of the business are often easier to work with, because their activities are integrated with the use of the software. Salespeople seldom can function without the software.

Secondly, you must recognize that the software is useless without a sales management process. The software provides you with a framework to deliver and improve that process, but it is not necessarily obvious.

The last is the software and other technical components. As some of these activities are complex and often take a lot of time, they often become the focus of the project. This is where everything gets off the rails. Yes, you must plan and implement the software, but this component is the least important.

The article that I have referenced describes this in more detail, but there are two items that stand out:

• Face the truth. What are the obstacles and challenges to making this work? They are unlikely to be the software or technology.
• What's in it for us? How will your business be improved by implementing CRM? Be very specific in terms of business outcomes. A wish will not achieve it.

Future state with a software project

When a business owner decides to take on a software project, they want to create an improvement in their business. With a owner managed business, this is more important that with a public business, because the money is coming out of the owner's pocket.

If this is so important, then why do many business owners get frustrated with the results achieved.

Many projects taken on to improve a business start off with a dream of improved results, but they are often just a dream. You look at what others have achieved, and HOPE to do the same. You don't know how they did it, but they used this software and got results.

The reasons are very simple, but not necessary very easy. As Albert Einstein said: "Life is simple, but not easy". The same is true of software projects. In order to get the results that you need, you need to understand HOW you will get those results. Your business is working a certain way today. How will the software change the way you get results? How will that benefit yoyr business? How will you know that you are succeeding?

If you can't answer these questions, you will be disappointed.

You understand your business. You don't need to understand the software. But you do need to understand how the software will help you. And you do have to play a major role in the decisions that are made during implementation of the software, because these can be critical.

Dream about what you want the future to be like. That's great. Then take a detailed look at what you have to do to make it that way.



http://www.valuedeliverymanagement.com/blog/index.php/2009/01/20/critical-insights-1/

Is your IT service delivering what the business needs?

A CIO Magazine article "What it takes to succeedNow as a CIO" described the difference between results described by the CIO (Chief Information Officer) and the CEO of organizations. Much of this relates to the definition of expectations. Many CIOs are still buried in managing Information Technology and still not focused enough on business outcomes.

Some statistics in this study:

• 70% of 506 CIOs rated IT as "considered an integral business partner by the rest of the company", while 46% of the business respondents rated IT as fair or poor.
• When asked about the impact of IT, "only 15 percent of you chose managing customer relationships and 11 percent said acquiring and retaining customers", yet these were critical to the business.

The real story is in this quote "There's an outcome that we need. How do we get it? Not, 'We need a new system. Please put it in." If your business discussion is not being held this way, then your business will lose. Whether you have a CIO or an IT Manager, or no IT department at all, this is the type of discussion that needs to take place.

You can see the full article here.

New Years IT Resolution

Every new year's day, people make New Years Resolutions for themselves. While some are successful and others may not be, should we be looking at doing this for our business?

This year, in particular, it may be more important than any other, with the state of the economy.

When business is good, we focus on selling and satisfying our customers needs. We seldom have time to do anything else. What do we do when business slows down?

There are two things that we can do:

• Look at ways to increase sales.
• Look at ways to reduce costs.

Often both actions are taken, but not effective.

If we look at increasing sales in areas that are not profitable, we lose. Yes, we have increased sales, but perhaps at a high cost.

If we look at our current customers, those that are the most profitable for us, and see how we can increase their sales, we get a double benefit. How do we do that? We need better information about our customers and the quality of service that is being delivered. Where do we get this? We get it from our computer systems. Many businesses don't look at this information, sometimes because it is hard to retrieve. But it is there and if we dig into it, we can find a lot of information. Because sales are down, you have more time to look at improving serice. If you get better profitability from your customers, the extra cost may be worth it.

One of the first things most companies do to reduce costs is to cut staff. While that may provide some short term relief, it also weakens your company. You lose the skills that they have developed, you can provide the additional support to improve quality of your most profitable clients, and you have no basis for competing with those who do. There are many ways to reduce costs and cutting staff, although perhaps the easiest, is the least effective. If you delve into your business processes to try and improve productivity, you get a double benefit.

• You reduce cost in a way that stays with you. You are able to take advantage of it when business picks up.
• You get more time to focus on improving the quality of service and therefore you can compete more effectively, perhaps even increasing sales during a recession.

How do you get the information to do all of this? Again you get it from your computer systems. We all use software to run our business. This software is typically used only at an activity level to manage transactions. We use only a small percentage of the software that we own. There is a tremendous opportunity to increase the value that we get from this software, without buying more.

So your New Years Resolution should be to increase the return on investment from your existing software. Your company will be more profitable, not just today, but for years to come.