It’s been a busy year at Ailm.
Given the events of the past year, organizations have awoken to discover their digital presence has stagnated, become unrefined, and often unfocused. The need to provide customers and clients with digital access to services, draw them in via digital channels, and tie together existing platforms for a more comprehensive experience have left many organizations feeling the pressure to quickly make the transition. Coupled with a now predominantly remote workforce, the path ahead can appear extremely daunting.
Many organizations are attempting to further invest in their digital infrastructure without a clear roadmap for the future.
- How long will this last?
- How do I reach my customers / clients?
- What happens when things return to normal?
- Where should I invest?
These are just some of questions we hear most often. While we can’t answer all of these, we can certainly provide some insight into the last question.
Where should I invest?
As each organization has distinct needs for their employees and customers, no single solution will meet everyone’s needs. We can however, make some general recommendations on your approach from prevailing trends over the past year.
Clean up your digital clutter
Years of new initiatives, changing business processes, and the constant evolution of business services usually leads to a lot of extraneous or out-of-date content and infrastructure. Re-assessing your existing infrastructure to align with future business planning can provide not only long term rewards, but immeadiate benefits for your current operations. While performing an internal assessment, you may also find that you have underutilized or unutilized tools that are collecting dust while license fees slowly bleed from your business accounts.
Plan for today and tomorrow
The need to solve an immeadiate business problem is often the catalyst for change, but it should not be the sole requirement. If we take a few minutes to step back from “what do I need today?”, and include the question “what tools will I need tomorrow?”, we will likely find that perhaps solving the immeadiate issue isn’t quite as important. Infrastructure extensibility is key to making long-lasting, effective improvements. Technology infrastructure should enable and support organizational growth, not impede it. Proper planning will not only prepare you to achieve your short-term goals, but also provide opportunities for service growth and expansion in the long-term. Looking at the entire suite of infrastructure, rather than individual components will better prepare you for long-term improvements.
Leverage skillsets you already have and build on them
Far too often, we choose solutions based on pricing and features. While these are important requirements, they typically fail to capture the “human skillset component”. When selecting a software solution, I often ask several key questions of my clients.
- Who will manage / administer the solution? What is their experience with this system or similar systems?
- Do we need to outsource the management of this solution based on available resources or technical requirements?
- What is the ROI of this solution? Management effort vs. productivity improvement?
- If you lose this resource tomorrow, how easy will it be to replace their technical expertise?
As with many things, a tool is only as good as its user. Selecting tools that can be understood, and effectively utilized by internal resources is very important when looking to invest. Researching available documentation or existing user training can provide valuable insight into how quickly your resources will be able to utilize the tool in a productive manner. While something that is easily understood is often too simplistic for future growth, it shouldn’t be so complex that it will take a lot of time for that employee to become productive.
Need more help assessing where to invest? Tell us about your needs