I feel truly blessed to have developed relationships with our clients where we can have a direct effect on their businesses.  In advising our clients, working hand-in-hand with the owner and leadership of the company to help match the clients business strategy with the proper technology to achieve those goals; this is our Advising services.  It’s great to see the results when a properly developed and implemented plan come together and play out of over a multi-year period.  The dividends are paid in terms of increased productivity, reduction of costs, happier employees and clients.

Entrepreneurs are a stubborn group, myself included.  Busy people with power can adopt what I call a “ready, fire, aim” approach to project planning and implementation.  It happens on a nearly continual basis, that owners with the best of intentions ask us to implement a solution they’ve developed.  ”Here is what I think what we need, send me a quote to get is done yesterday”.  Unfortunately all to often, as they are not IT Consultants, their picture of the technology available to solve a problem is at best a few years behind the time.  I had one business owner just two years back suggest we implement a floppy disk backup system he had in the closet because he “still worked and didn’t want it to go to waste.”  … not everyone can be helped.

I stress to our new clients (and often remind our existing) that we have a process in place for a reason and it’s important we stick to it because it works!  Technology is a foundational part of most businesses, developing an understanding of our clients business to implement these mission critical systems is important to getting it done right the first time.  And it’s always easier (and cheaper) to do things once.

Tags: Advising,implementation,Planning,process,project management,strategy
Categories: Commentary, Digital Partners, Technology Advising, Training
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Continuing our series of how to save money on IT in (any) economy is Part 2: Plan, then purchase.

It’s cheaper to purchase things only once.  That’s a pretty self-evident statement if I’ve ever written one.  However, you’d be surprised the amount of waste that clogs up an IT budget in the form of unplanned or unneeded purchases.  I like to refer to this as “buying” when you should be “investing”.  I’ve view it from this paradigm:  You buy costs; they are expenses like office supplies or postage.  You invest in assets; they can be in many forms but they must either allow your business to earn more income or reduce costs.  Technology in business must be viewed as an investment.  The net effect of either making more or spending less will result is your company being more profitable.

They key to it all is with the plan.  When financial planners meet with new clients they analyze their situation, develop a unique plan based upon their clients goals and then implements that plan over time.  When you start with the end in mind you can build upon a solid foundation of right fitting technologies, ones that complement your business goals.  The person behind this plan is your IT architect, like an Executive Consultant from DP.  This is the person responsible for working in conjunction with your management team will develop a technology plan to accomplish your business objectives.  Sure, it may “cost” more to hire an advisor to chart this out early on, but it’s far less costly than retooling during heavy growth or the missed opportunities of using a poorly selected system.  Does your IT plan support your business plan?

Tags: Advising,Architect,Budget,Investing,IT,Planning,Technology
Categories: Digital Partners, Technology Advising
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