You already know the problems - knowing which one to fix first is the important first step

Your business strategy should be supported by technology, and yet it surprises me how often there are big gaps between what the business needs and what technology provides. 

I've spoken to lots of local CEOs and when we talk about how well their technology supports their business I don’t need to prompt them - they can list the problems - they can be very painful and expensive. 

Here is a relevant example: We recently came across a very successful manufacturer who clearly understood the problems they were having. An old and poorly implemented ERP system mean lots of workarounds to run their business. Each of these took time and had the potential to add errors and delays to business information, making it hard to manage the business and grow without the leverage effect of good systems. His major problem – “I don’t know what to do first.” 

As business conditions improve, what to spend capital on is a critical decision. You already know most of the problems at a business level and have a good feel for what they are costing in terms of revenue, margin or customer perception. 

Here is what I’ve heard from local CEOs here in Canterbury: 

Business problem - What this looks like in your business 

Missing or untracked margin:
You can't see where margin is being lost in your processes. 

Difficulty managing the business:
Critical management decisions can’t be made because information from your business processes arrives too late to make changes.  

Data errors and complexity:
Your data is being manually entered from one system to another, often a spreadsheet, to complete business logic, then back again to complete a process. This is complex, potentially introduces errors and is time consuming. 

Technology doesn’t scale:
When you receive new orders that increase production or services, your technology systems don’t scale meaning your staff costs escalate to compensate. 

Keeping competitive:
You are concerned about keeping up or leading your industry. A symptom of this is your staff complaining about systems not doing enough even though they run well. 

Over promised or missing benefits:
Technology promises have failed to deliver all the benefits they were bought for within a reasonable timeframe or budget. 

Senior leaders know the challenges but are unsure of what to tackle first, what options exist, what will move the business forward fastest, and how these stack up against other investment decisions the business must make. There are two core reasons for this: 

1 - Business change outpacing technology investment: 

• With the multiple demands on a business’s capital, if technology improvements aren’t brought to senior executives as investment options to improve outcomes, they can be deprioritised and technology may fall behind 

• Businesses continually evolve. Without ongoing investment, technology gradually falls out of step with changing processes, customer expectations and growth requirements. 

2 - Technology decisions don’t create the expected outcomes: 

• Some IT staff and/or suppliers focus on ‘keeping systems going’ and minimising risk. This is a natural thing to do, particularly with critical systems, but it comes at the cost of minimising change and by extension, business improvement  

• Technology improvements can be presented as multiple “problems or risks”. If these aren’t prioritised against cost, benefit and the ability to move a business forward they will be delayed 

• A poor initial implementation or ‘oversold’ features mean the solution is underperforming compared with expectations and the business compensates with workarounds