Managing a competitive business requires adaptive technologies to innovate, automate, and optimize resource deployment. Abundant technology options have made it challenging to filter noise. To develop a holistic technology roadmap for your business, there are several factors to consider.
- Technology needs to support strategy
Sound execution of your business strategy requires technology support for expedient results. This means you need to take a comprehensive review of technology needs and prioritize them.
The review identifies critical technologies and others that enable how well you can execute your strategy. These technologies might include customer relationship management (CRM), robotic process automation (RPA), and artificial intelligence (AI).
Having a big picture view allows you to plan in a cohesive, rational manner. In addition, it helps with selection of appropriate technologies.
- Fit for purpose
To select a technology that meets your business needs, you ought to know what the gaps are between the current state and the ideal state. The information equips you to ask poignant questions when shopping for a solution.
An automation feature does not save time when you still need a person to assign the work in the application. It just eliminates the need for a whiteboard or tracking in Excel. There is no significant gain in productivity.
Selecting a popular application doesn’t guarantee your pain would be removed eloquently. The best is to fully understand the improvements you seek and hone in on how well the technology would eliminate the pain points.
- Ease of integration
It is likely that your business would need more than one technology. As you identify the technologies that are essential for the business, you have an understanding on integration needs.
Integration enables quick data access. Real-time data allows you retrieve insight with little effort and take proactive actions in a timely manner.
Artificial intelligence technology places much emphasis on speed. Native, built-in artificial intelligence features work well without having to access data from another application. However, vendor’s constraints might put you in a position to bridge the gap with a third-party application.
Knowing ahead whether a technology can be easily integrated is an important factor that affects performance.
- Cost of use
Cloud-based technologies remove the need for in-house programmers. However, the monthly fees could add up quickly.
Prepare a summary on the various technology costs and keep it handy for reference. As you develop the technology roadmap and shop for fit-for-purpose solutions, refer to the summary and include a question on features such as document archive, e-signature, and others that your business needs.
With a comprehensive view of your technology needs, you are better prepared to make sound investments.
- Scalability
To orient your technology roadmap to support growth, it is beneficial to keep scalability in mind. This goes beyond features and functionalities.
With respect to scalability, you need to consider whether the technology can function well as the volume of work increases. Factors such as performance bottleneck due to slow database queries, network latency due to data transmission over the network, and how data is stored and accessed.
Ask these questions and speak with existing customers about their experiences. The way a technology is configured impacts scalability in different ways.
While it is tempting to make a quick investment to address a deficiency, the impact could be more lasting. Switching to an alternative solution down the road is often a complex undertaking. As a result, it is beneficial to plan ahead and take a holistic approach to develop a purposeful technology roadmap.
Check out this whitepaper on 9 Ways to Improve the Success of Digital Transformation for more ideas in developing your technology roadmap.
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