Blog > Finance & Strategy > 7 Pillars of Business Success, Part 4 – Technology
7 Pillars of Business Success - Pillar 3: Technology, VR and AR
5 February 2020

7 Pillars of Business Success, Part 4 – Technology

Every market is now a technology market. For some that simply means using technology to do the same things faster and better. For others it has re-written the rulebook entirely.

Technology is now as fundamental to every business as the people that use it. And just as with people, you can only take the full value of technology if it’s joined up, pointing in one direction, and resting upon a foundation of sensible business strategies and processes.

Therefore, before we get into the exciting stuff, let’s first explore some of the most important business principles alongside which any smart technology strategy must exist, no matter what your size or sector.

 

1. Have a clear vision and understand how technology is to play a role in delivering that vision

As leader, it’s imperative that not only are you able to articulate a compelling vision for your brand, but that you have a strong sense of how technology will help you deliver that vision. What are the key technologies – be it AI, cloud computing or big data, for example – that will act as the driving force behind this mission and how does it align with the culture and values of the organisation?

Failure to articulate how technology sits within the overall business will damage transformation projects and create a fear among customers and employees that technology is their enemy rather than ally.

 

2. Accountability

As with any part of the business, ownership and accountability are critical in driving action and getting things done. One of the biggest issues with new technology is that the person responsible for it (CTO or CIO) is usually the same person responsible for managing and troubleshooting the existing technology. This person is probably not well placed to be driving through true innovation as they are pre-occupied with making existing technology work. Instead, you need someone in a dedicated transformation role.

Of course the vast majority of businesses are too small to accommodate that specialist role so responsibility will need to be given to an existing member of the team. In which case, clear expectations will need to be set around the strategic significance of facilitating change vs maintaining and leveraging the status quo. Clarity around quarterly and annual strategic goals will be imperative.

In mid to large organisations, you may also need involvement from the departments in question. It’s probably not enough for one department to be driving through change and innovation for every function. Instead you’re likely to need what’s called a “hub and spoke” system, where the hub is a central transformation department focused on the new technologies, and each spoke is a different function in the business, where the people in that function will usually have the best understanding of how the technology can be adopted and leveraged within their world. Again, establishing clear metrics for accountability at both a central and departmental level is going to be essential.

 

3. Understand the basics of change management

Finding the right technology is usually the easy part. Where things become difficult is in adoption, even in SME’s. The key is to identify a small cohort of early adopters who can help you to prove the business case and iron out any early problems. Engage this cohort effectively and you’ll soon find other parts of the business want in on the action.

By trying to do too much too quickly, or by trying to win over the cynics before the business case is proven, you are going to set yourself up for failure.

 

4. Build your incoming technology conduits

As leader, you don’t have time to immerse yourself in every new form of technology, but you do need to have a steady flow of ideas. It may be a case of subscribing to half a dozen blogs or attending industry events. Some particularly progressive business leaders will meet up with competing firms to share ideas (and in some cases, even collaborate on new investments) in order to expose themselves to a broader range of insights and mitigate risk.

 

5. Cyber Security

For a long time it was difficult to get cyber security on the board’s agenda as it was viewed as an optional cost rather than business critical investment. Those times have gone; senior leaders recognise that the stakes are too high to bury their heads in the sand and some have even realised it can be a source of competitive advantage. Customers, whether business or consumer, want to know that they are dealing with a brand they can trust, and they attach great value to measures taken to protect their data and security.

And this is not limited to large organisations. In fact, Steve Wright, former CISO for the Bank of England, recently argued that smart cyber criminals were increasingly targeting small companies, as too often they lack the resources and systems to sustain an attack, and the rewards can still be considerable.


Three tech tools your business should already be exploiting

Now, that we’ve established the fundamentals of technology adoption, let’s look at some of the technologies your company should either already be leveraging, or at least planning on doing so in 2020.

 

Cloud computing

For non techies, cloud computing is simply storing stuff on a big remote server elsewhere rather than locally on your computer. It is largely credited with the “democratisation of the web” and has allowed small businesses and individuals to access technologies and services that were previously limited to huge corporations.

There are three really big players in this market – Amazon Web Services, Google Cloud and Microsoft Azure – and all three provide everything from hosting, email, file storage (like word, excel and powerpoint but online) website management and app development. A business of 10-20 people can probably access all the cloud services they could ever need for as little as £50-100 / month.

 

Accountancy software

A more specific example of cloud computing can be seen within the accountancy market. At Wilson Partners we like our clients to be one step ahead and have over the past few years moved many of our them to Xero, the leading accountancy cloud package.

Cloud accounting allows users to manage their books online via a virtual dashboard. As with all cloud software it’s constantly being updated so there are always new features and tools to help the user experience. It’s also typically paid for on a monthly subscription, so a small business of 10-20 people will probably spend around £30 a month with no long term contracts.

 

Collaboration and project management tools

As remote and flexible working becomes more common and a key tool in attracting and retaining the best talent, it’s really important your business is taking full advantage of the many platforms geared towards facilitating communication and collaboration. In addition to the obvious ones like Skype, FaceTime, Slack and WhatsApp, there are also online productivity and project management tools like Trello and Monday.com that allow users to manage their projects and workflows in a highly visual and collaborative way,. Meanwhile time tracking tools like Harvest help you to see where time is being spent and, more importantly, where it is being lost!

 

And finally, the technology on the horizon that we all need to be watching

AI

You’ve no doubt heard about the AI revolution on the horizon, with the much speculated consequences both exhilarating and terrifying in equal measure.

The truth is that there are so many unknowns that there is little point in losing any sleep over it for now. However, there are less advanced technologies that are already having quite profound implications for certain markets.

As business leaders, it’s this more immediate future that we need to be concerned with.

True AI is dependent on a high degree of machine learning – the ability for it to self evolve and adapt as it encounters new stimuli, just as a human brain has to. However, there is a form of technology that doesn’t involve such a high level of machine learning, and it’s called software robotics, or robotic process automation. This is essentially where a human shows the machine specifically what needs to be done, and then the machine replicates that process, over and over again. This technology has its limitations, of course, but for highly repetitive tasks such as customer on-boarding or invoicing, it can turn an administrative burden into a major competitive edge.

Naturally the fear of such technology is that those in administrative roles will lose their jobs. In reality what’s been shown to happen in 90% of companies employing robotics (and basic AI) is that the people that are used instead on less repetitive, more rewarding tasks, usually customer facing where the human touch can really make a difference.

No matter how you feel about this kind of technology, there is no holding back the tide, so smart businesses will invest their time now in proactively exploring the likely robotics and AI use cases for their industry, while adoption is still a matter of strategic advantage rather than mere survival.

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