IT systems are mission critical for the day-to-day running of most businesses. Stockport IT Providers Amshire believe technology also provides a competitive edge, opens new opportunities to exploit and provides the ability to grow more profitably.
With technology evolving at a seemingly incessant pace, it is understandable that most small and medium sized businesses struggle to keep tabs on developments, even for their everyday use, let alone understanding how they could harness IT to more profitable effect.
Combining business knowledge with expertise in technology can deliver a critical edge, improve efficiencies and increase profit.
Amshire managing director Dave Taylor shares his expert opinion:
Increasingly, companies are involving and collaborating with their IT providers at a strategic level on projects that deliver significant improvements to their bottom line – for example, cutting costs, delivering new revenue streams and enhancing customer service.
The potential opportunities that today’s technologies can offer a business, regardless of the sector they are in, their size or markets, is limited only by imagination.
Two minds better than one
So, bringing together two minds – yours with the knowledge and understanding of your business, Customers and markets and that of your IT provider who understands what’s technically feasible creates a potent mix. The possibilities are seemingly endless but it’s only by exploring the opportunities that these possibilities can be turned into hard cash.
A good starting point is to consider each element of your business’s value chain, i.e. the process your business executes, in order, to deliver added value to your Customers. In simple terms this consists of three primary stages:
- Input – relating to receiving, storing and distributing internally your source materials, information and intelligence.
- Process – the transformational ‘value add’ process by which inputs are turned into outputs that are sold to your Customers.
- Output – relating to how your end products or services are delivered to your Customers, including how you promote, sell and provide aftersales support.
Any, or all, of these elements of your value chain could benefit from exploiting the use of technology. The trick is in identifying what and how this can be done, along with the likely return on investment, before deciding whether to go ahead.
Harnessing technology
Today’s technology makes just about anything possible. Many will be aware of at least some of the latest trends such as cloud-based computing, unified communications, remote working, ‘bring your own device (BYOD), big data and others.
However, few will appreciate exactly how these could be relevant and be of benefit to their own business, yet many of these developments have the potential to transform how a business operates, whether they are big or small. The trick is to understand what is most relevant and how to unlock the potential it offers.
This is why, your IT Managed Service provider is much more than someone you simply turn to when something goes wrong. They really do, have the potential to offer much more.
Thanks to Amshire’s Dave Taylor for contributing his Expert Opinion