Building a digital business? Don’t sacrifice your agility

The benefits of taking your business digital are mostly about agility — and newcomers, especially small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs), need to safeguard that agility carefully.

One aspect of agility is mobility. If your employees aren’t chained to their desks but can access all the systems and information they need, from wherever they are, that can increase productivity dramatically. If you can’t check your stock, place an order and confirm a delivery date before the end of a meeting with a client — be sure that one of your competitors can.

Cloud computing is another aspect of agility. Moving as much as possible into the cloud, from applications to documents to accounting systems, relieves SMEs of a massive administrative overhead. Your software will always be up to date, your backups can be automated and you’ll never again have to hold back on a project because you first need a budget to upgrade your systems.

But all of these benefits, he says, can be undermined if business owners aren’t careful about choosing their service providers — and their contract terms. Connectivity is the single most important enabler for the digital business — and locking yourself into a long-term contract with a single service provider is the single most dangerous thing you can do.

A lot of service providers take advantage of the fact that SME owners and executives aren’t necessarily IT experts, and don’t always know exactly what they need. If you’re not careful, some service providers will sell you the most expensive version of everything they offer, even if you don’t need it, and lock you into a 24-month contract to boot. But a lot can change in two years – you might find yourself stuck with something that at best doesn’t serve your needs, and at worst actually holds you back.

To avoid the lock-in trap, your contracts should be as agile as your technology. As a business owner you may not know much about IT, but you do know how to identify a good deal – put that knowledge to work.

Going for a big name is not always the best option, he adds. Big companies tend to be best at serving other big companies. Find someone who shows by the questions they ask that they understand small businesses in general, and want to understand your business in particular. Insist that you have the freedom to change networks or pricing plans at a day’s notice, if that will serve your needs, without having to pay any penalties or wade through red tape. Things move fast in this industry, and the network that’s perfect for you this month might be terrible next month — or maybe you’ll need different networks to supply different needs. The most important thing is to find one partner who’ll help you create and maintain the agility you need to stay abreast of your competitors.