Are You Spending Too Much on Your Business Technology? Or Too Little?

Making decisions about your business technology spend can be a difficult and confusing process. And when there are so many other demands for your precious cash flow, spending on technology is often put on the back burner, after all the old stuff is working right? Seems like the safe approach.

However, real business stories, great successes and big failures, say something else. The real danger is in spending too little. Here are three new reasons why:

Some New Technology is About to Threaten Your Business Model or Already Has

Ask a travel agent, taxi company, hotel operator, video store owner, or any retailer/wholesaler fighting against Amazon and other ecommerce companies, they will tell you how disruptive new technology is changing business models everywhere and have hurt if not eliminated their business.

You may say, well that does not apply to my company, but have you considered your largest future customer base? Millennials, 80 million buyers who live and breathe technology. Can they reach you, or you reach them, on their iPhone or the web? Have you thought about the scores of startups, brand new ideas that are targeting this market intending to take it from you? It’s time to do some disruption of your own!

Cyber Crime is Dramatically on the Rise

This is serious, one of your most valuable business assets your customer, product and financial data, is probably sitting in what even a semi-skilled hacker would consider equivalent to a shed in your back yard with no lock.

No longer targeting just big companies, cyber criminals are trolling for valuable data everywhere. But, that is not the only threat. Have you heard of “Ransomware?”

Basically it is this, a cybercriminal tricks one of your employees into downloading an evil piece of software that infects your computer. It shuts your system down and the only way to restore it to operation is by paying the hacker a ransom.

Report in the Wall Street Journal ‘Ransomware’ a Growing Threat to Small Businesses, Cybercriminals, using malware in bogus email, freeze computer files until a ransom is paid. The report shared that “Intel Security, a unit of Intel Corp., said it reviewed more than 250,000 new ransomware samples in the fourth quarter of 2014, up 155% from the previous quarter.” The stats are higher today. The report shared that “Intel Security, a unit of Intel Corp., said it reviewed more than 250,000 new ransomware samples in the fourth quarter of 2014, up 155% from the previous quarter.” The stats are higher today.

Your Competition is not Spending Too Little

Will your company be left behind as your competitors benefit from the better business intelligence reporting tools that are available to you today? Will your customers leave you because other companies like yours have a slick online customer portal or let them do business on their phones?

The most successful small businesses in New York City, have adopted new technology in a way that helped their business to prosper more than their competitors.

Could be better inventory or warehouse management, going paperless, or just a faster better network. In any case, in this age you cannot afford to stand still, move ahead and improve your business technology or fall behind.

Where to Get Advice?

So if you have been persuaded to take a look at your business technology investment you are probably wondering, where can I go for help? Business trade groups can be helpful, your CPA is always a good choice, but only if she or he makes it their business to be up to date on the field. Your best choice is probably your IT provider, if they are a full service firm like Net at Work.