Tech Tactics for Growing Companies

Recently a friend of mine (a tap dancing student at Penn State University) asked me to help him send a 161 MB file to one of his friends. He tried to use Gmail to send it but Gmail has a 25MB limit. I suggested he use the file sharing service Yousendit, but the free version also has a file-size limitation.

I have a Dropbox account (another file sharing service) that I pay for, and we were able to quickly transfer the file with no problem. 

What’s the lesson here? There's a solution to every technology problem. But picking the right one can require time, patience, and flexibility -- along with some good advice from a trusted advisor.

There are many business owners who have a variety of technology solutions, but the reason they are not getting the most out of the technology is that they have not invested the time (and often the money) to ensure they are using technology to its full potential. Sometimes, as in the example above, you have to move away from free services and pay for something -- to “get what you pay for.” Other times you might need to educate yourself (or your employees) more about technology.

I’ve found that the most successful businesses are not the ones who just have a lot of technology, but it’s those who are leveraging technology in the right ways.

1. Educate your employees (and contractors) about technology. As your company grows you’ll find that your employees have different skill sets. Some know a lot about technology, and some do not. Some are experts in public relations but don’t know how to use online collaboration software. Ensure the all your employees and/or contractors know how to get the most out of the technology that's relevant to their daily responsibilities. Part of this process can involve online training resources such as Grovo.com or Media Bistro. It might also involve face-to-face events (such as the awesome Brooklyn Chamber of Commerce tech event I attend last week) and keeping up with your reading on small-biz technology (which is what you’re doing right now).

2. Perform technology audits. Too many small businesses view IT consultants the same way they view lawyers or accountants -- we only reach out to them when we have a problem. This is not good. Instead, ask your IT consultant to evaluate and audit how your company is using technology, and to recommend ways to use it better. Maybe your network is very slow, for example, and an upgrade from hubs to switches would work wonders for your productivity.

It's also important to seek out technology professionals with relevant expertise. So for your website, you might want to hire a design expert to advice you on ways to make your web site more visually impacting. Your website, your network, your security, your mobile devices, your software -- all of these technologies need to be regularly reviewed by an expert.

3. Benchmark your progress. It is very important to use analytics on your website to analyze your traffic, users, and content. It’s equally (or maybe even more) important to benchmark the success of your company overall, as it relates to technology. For example, are customers calling you and not being responded to in a timely fashion? This could have a technology solution – such as a better voice mail system or using a hosted phone system with more features and flexibility to receive the calls. If you do not benchmark your progress, document the problems and highlight the solutions you won’t know which technology is working, which is not working, and the overall ROI for your technology.

4. Monitor your competition. Your competition is one of the things that might keep you up at night – wondering if they’ve lowered their prices, what new innovation they’ve been up to and etc. Keep an eye on what new technology innovations your competition has developed. Keep an eye on what works and what customers like – and emulate it. Just as important, know what is NOT working for them, and avoid it like the plague.