Strategic Technology Investment for Business Growth: Future-Proof Your Business

By: Jeffrey Shear

Managing Director, Advisory

It is budgeting season, which means it is time to consider your operating and marketing budgets and forecast your technology investment for business growth spend for at least the next 12 to 36 months. Some of the most essential components of technology spend you need to include are for technology replacement or upgrades and for information technology in the form of data analytics and business intelligence. Too many risks and missed opportunities are caused by not investing properly in technology and data analytics.

Future-Proofing Your Business: The Essential Role of Technology and Data Analytics

In today’s environment, technology and information are more than support functions—they are vital components of growth and efficiency. It is why Wiss itself has invested in its own internal technology strategies in addition to supporting its clients with theirs. As companies look forward to their plans for the next year or years, assessing their technological needs and developing a strategic plan for improvement is crucial. This plan needs to go beyond maintaining the existing infrastructure and instead focus on how a technology investment for business growth can enhance operational performance and provide critical insights into business performance and growth opportunities.

Knowing when it is time for a Technology Investment for Business Growth and improved Analytics

Any business’s operations are dependent on three important pillars: people, processes, and technology. Technology supports people and processes and enables and makes them more efficient.

Suppose your people work harder or modify their processes to accommodate the technology. In that case, it is time to upgrade the technology or at least find out why these inefficiencies exist and create a mitigation plan.  This plan may range from reimplementing your current technology to better training, integrating your systems, and introducing a new application to a full system upgrade.

Suppose the information you are receiving in reports or other forms of information, such as KPIs, does not allow for the management of the business by the numbers or does not allow for the ability to plan for future growth. In that case, you need to improve your data analytics. Even if you are getting good information but doing a lot of data crunching manually in spreadsheets, you need to improve your data analytics.

Data Analytics improvements can involve more efficient use of your current applications’ reporting capabilities or the introduction of a business intelligence tool. This will allow for the analysis of data from multiple sources, visualization of your data in charts and graphics, and quick measures through KPIs. These can all be combined into comprehensive dashboards targeted for specific audiences.

Understanding Your Technological Needs

The first step in creating a robust technology strategy to support your business is to understand your business’s unique needs thoroughly. This starts by asking key stakeholders in your organization:

• What are the current challenges or missed opportunities your business faces?
• What processes am I modifying or throwing more resources at to accommodate my current technology?
• What questions can I ask about my data, and what KPIs should be monitored to better understand our company’s performance and opportunity?
• Where can technology changes provide operational efficiencies or business growth opportunities?

Once those challenges are understood, it is then time to determine:

• Can the existing technology and IT organization address those challenges?
• What additional resources, technology, or data analytics would be needed to make the company more efficient now and allow for growth in the future?
• How can I plan and budget for these Technology upgrades and additions?

By addressing these key questions, companies can better understand which technology investment for business growth to prioritize and have the greatest impact directly supporting their business objectives and growth.

Developing a Technology Improvement Plan

Once you understand your needs, the next step is to create a comprehensive technology improvement plan. This plan should outline goals, timelines, and resources and include the milestones and tasks required to complete these goals.

Often, technology improvements may include organizational changes or additions and the selection of new technology applications. Both processes take time, which should be considered in any project plan and timeline.

The implementation of any new technology requires many considerations such as who in the organization will be responsible and who is involved. How much data will be moved from old to new systems, who will do that data transformation. What roles and permissions will be given to each level of staff? What are the reporting needs and how will they be accomplished?

The Technology Improvement Plan needs to be realistic, comprehensive, and detailed to understand the impact on the organization and for the finance team to be able to budget effectively for these changes.

Partnering with Finance

Once the technology strategy is developed and aligned with the overall company strategy, it must be incorporated into the budget. It is not just about including the right amount of technology spend in the budget but understanding how the proposed technology transformations can impact the bottom line by impacting top line results as well as other spend line items. The financial planning & analysis (FP&A) team, whether internal or external, is key to calculating these impacts as part of the annual budgeting process.

In addition to the budget, the FP&A team can support the technology team in understanding how to quantify and estimate the potential return on investments for the company’s technology investments for business growth. These types of initiatives may take time to have a positive impact on the bottom line and may be difficult to quantify. The partnership between the technology and finance departments is just as important as the collaboration that the technology and finance teams need to have with the entire organization to have the most significant impact on company operations.

How can my organization benefit from professional help?

Often, this analysis and identification of technology improvements is hard to do and requires a high commitment from your internal organization. Having an outside resource to do a technology-focused Business Process Review (BPR) may better serve your company. The BPR will identify the required technological improvements and present them in a prioritized manner along with a comprehensive and executable project plan. 

The Wiss Technology Advisory Group can provide this service and has done so for many companies of various sizes and industries.  Wiss can also provide additional services such as data analytics and reporting and a guided system selection as well as act as your advocate and project manager for any system improvement or implementation. 

The FP&A team at Wiss can support your budgetary process and help your organization fully understand the impact of a significant technology investment for business growth.

Conclusion

In a world where technology is continuously evolving, businesses must proactively assess their technological needs and develop a comprehensive improvement plan. By integrating data analytics and business intelligence into this strategy, companies can better understand their performance and drive efficiencies that lead to growth.

PreviousNext