creating your IT Plan

Such a solution might save time while allowing customers better access to the content they want most: Visual updates about their homes.

Consult your team

When you're making technology decisions, it's important to get

input from the people who will be using it. Ask your employees, customers, independent contractors, or other stakeholders what they think. Find out if they agree that the challenges you see are the same as what they see.

"They're often closest to customers or closest to the problem and best poised to help you solve it. In order to help understand the problem, you need to get a variety of perspectives, not necessarily filtered by managers. Talk to the end users, and talk to your customers as well," says Scott Steinberg, CEO and lead analyst at New York City-based IT consulting firm TechSavvy Global.

Analyze potential ROI

Once you have a good understanding of the business goals and problems, you can begin to look at what the potential ROI might be on various investments and upgrades. Steinberg says you might look at factors like:

• Increased productivity
• Decreased downtime
• New business opportunities
• Minimizing errors
• Increased profitability or billable hours

But how do you equate these benefits to dollars, which may give you a better sense of where to invest first and the amount you should spend? In cases of increased productivity, it can be relatively straightforward. For example, if you have a group of employees who earn an average of $25 per hour, and you can increase their productivity by streamlining operations, reducing mistakes, or otherwise automating your systems, you can use hourly calculations. Let's say you regain a total of 10 hours per week through technology, and you have a return of roughly $250 per week or $13,000 per year.

A recent survey by technology security firm Symantec found that the median cost of downtime to an SMB is roughly $12,500 per day. If you can reduce downtime through more reliable technology, you're saving those costs to your business.

In addition to the amount you typically include in your budget for technology resources, look at the potential ROI before you spend money on new technology. In some cases, you'll want to make across-the-board purchases, such as upgrading staff laptops. In other cases, deeper targeted investments may be warranted. For example, you may wish to provide mobile devices to your sales team so they can process orders or input customer relationship management (CRM) data from the road. You may wish to adopt a new cloud-based project management solution to help manage work flow and help employees be more productive. Decide how you'll measure your technology ROI, and be sure you're tracking those metrics.

Look for growth opportunities

Steinberg says there are also opportunity costs involved in technology. Would an investment in technology allow you to expand into new markets or service larger customers? Could you employ technology to innovate your products or services and help you grow your company? Is the market changing in a way where you'll eventually need to adopt this technology, and is there a benefit to being among the first to do so? These are questions you need to look at, as well. A technology investment in a tablet, such as the Venue 11 Pro with Intel Inside® or the new Inspiron 11 3000 Series 2-in-1 with Intel® Celeron® or Intel® Pentium® processor, might be what's standing between your business and its next level of success.

Examine your options

As you begin to explore the many technology solutions, including servers, workstations, devices, hardware, software, cloud-based applications, and others -- determining how they can best work together can be a daunting task. You may also need to contend with employees using their own devices for work, a trend called "bring your own device," or BYOD. Start by looking at what's working well within your business. Are there systems that seem efficient and seamless? If so, that may be an area which can be replicated or upon which you may build. Is your marketing team hyper-efficient, for example? Examine the collection of hardware, software, and other solutions they're using. While some won't be appropriate for other departments, you may be able to replicate how their system is constructed and how decisions are made, tailoring those aspects for various departments.

While innovation is one constant in technology, it's also important to look for names you can trust. Established brands with strong customer service and a history of producing reliable products can help you ensure that your new technology installation or upgrade will go as smoothly as possible and that the company will be able to stand by its products and services.

Stagger introduction

Once you've made choices about the best technology solutions for your situation, think about the schedule and timing carefully, says Indianapolis, Indiana business strategist Susan Baroncini-Moe, author of Business in Blue Jeans. Baroncini-Moe advises integrating your new technology in stages and during times when your business is slower than normal, if possible.

"Be strategic about when and how you're going to integrate new systems. Choosing the right timing is important to success," she says.

At the very least, don't roll out critical systems when you need them most, such as upgrading your call-center technology or online ordering system during your busiest holiday or transitioning your accounting system right before tax season. Introducing new technology at a less frenetic time will allow you to test each new device, system, or solution thoroughly.

As new systems or applications are added, be certain they're working properly before you move on to the next addition. Too often, companies plow ahead with the full upgrade without interim testing and have trouble if one component isn't working, Baroncini-Moe says.

Measure success

Remember those technology metrics you chose when you were analyzing the potential ROI of your investment. It's important to keep track of them, and make sure that your new systems are working as planned. If so, great. It might be time to look at other areas to upgrade and optimize.

If your returns are not as planned, it's time to look at why they aren't. Is the technology being used to its greatest capacity? Does your team need additional training? Is there some other problem that needs to be solved? Reconvene your team, and start asking these key questions and make adjustments as necessary.

source:inc