BUSINESS & TECHNOLOGY - LEADERSHIP - REVENUE & EXPENSE

Business leaders expect employees to understand their point of view: To be a successful organization and maintain sustainability they need people to work diligently and to provide value in the marketplace constantly. However, unrealistic expectations from your staff will not help you achieve goals and business objectives...read more

Setting goals which push staff to achieve their best can lead to very positive results. On the other hand, setting unrealistic goals can have a negative impact on employees and the business. As new technological innovations are emerging, it’s impacting workplace and also roles and responsibilities in IT Departments...read more

4 Major Unrealistic Expectations in IT Departments - Expectations vs Reality:

Expecting employees to be consultant: Employee usually work for 5-10 companies during their career(s). On the other hand, a well experience consultant would have worked with hundreds of organizations and bring a fresh approach, an outside eye to your business. Expecting your employees to provide similar service as consultant and provide assistance in business decisions/strategy will have negative financial impact on both revenue and profit margin...read more

Expecting employees to build IT process: Building IT Process approach and Strategy required diverse experience in both IT and business process. It takes years for any IT Organization to build, mature and establish proven processes and expecting IT staff to build IT process is unrealistic expectation. Organization needs to provide IT Process and Strategy to their staff to deliver expected business results. Both IT process and strategy are organizational responsibility and should not be delegated to staff...read more

Expecting IT employees to manage Soft cost and HR issues: Understanding both technologies related soft cost and HR issues require business process and strategy experience. Both hard and soft cost usually required expertise from CFO’s and dealing with any HR issues required HR professional expertise. Since both of these business process interface with technologies, many business leaders expect IT staff to be subject matter expert these processes...read more

Managing employees - providing expectations: Ongoing coaching and training for your IT Staff is critical to boost their productivity and your business performance. IT Staff expect leadership, guidance and directions from their employer. IT employees are the right people to make numerous decisions about IT management—the choice of technology standards, the standard methodology for implementing new systems. But an IT department should not be left to make, often by default, the choices that determine the impact of IT on a company’s business strategy, is that business leaders take a leadership role in a handful of key IT decisions...read more

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Most business executives are hesitant to get involve in technology related decisions because it could be overwhelming..read more  

And common sentiment is “What can I do? I don’t understand IT and IT people—although they work hard—don’t seem to understand the very real business problems I face.” 

Recent research show that companies that manage their IT investments most successfully generate returns that are as much as 40% higher than those of their competitors.

While several factors distinguish these top-performing companies, the most important is that most important is that senior managers take a leadership role in a handful of key IT decisions.

IT executives are the right people to make numerous decisions about IT management—the choice of technology standards, the design of the IT operations center, the technical expertise the organization will need, the standard methodology for implementing new systems. But an IT department should not be left to make, often by default, the choices that determine the impact of IT on a company’s business strategy.s that senior managers take a leadership role in a handful of key IT decisions...read more

Here's top 3 items most business leaders always considering:

How much should we spend on IT?

Business executives needs to understand IT cost in their business. IT Hard cost is small item compare to other business expenses however IT Soft cost is many times higher cost than any other cost. Investing too little on IT hard cost will increase business soft cost and investing too much will price you out of market. Since IT cost is directly tied with profit margins and revenue, business executives need to invest time to understand cost to stay competitive and focus on soft cost or impact of technology on business to control IT cost..read more

Which business processes should receive our IT dollars?

Finding a business process for best return on investment is always priority. However, business executives need to not only focus on quick wins but also long-term investment for much higher gains. A quick infrastructure upgrades will provide some short-term wins but building IT strategy, deploying IT process and training your staff on right skill sets will provide much higher return on investments...read more

Which IT capabilities need to be companywide?

Communication, connectivity, security and staff training are some of the critical items that applied company wide. Increasingly, executives are recognizing the significant cost savings and strategic benefits that come from IT capabilities and standardizing IT infrastructure across an organization. Any automation around communication among staff and/or with customer will improve organization wide capabilities...read more

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Improving operating profit margin can involve either bringing in more money or spending less. Often these two approaches to improving profit margins are interrelated: increasing sales can enable a company to achieve efficiencies through economies of scale, lowering operating costs while simultaneously bringing in extra revenue...read more

Technology impacts both increasing sales and lowering operating cost

The fastest way to grow your profits is often to improve your margins. Many businesses don't like to talk about margins because they feel increasing margins requires large technology investments, but that simply isn't the case. There are a number of steps you can take to improve your margins without taking on further investments...read more

Understanding Impact: 3 critical items to consider increasing Profit Margins

Revenue: Technology can be a powerful engine for revenue growth and increased profitability. According to recent research by Jacquette consulting, data from several other studies, along with their our own observations over 16 years of development projects, supports our assertion. In fact, IT investment often pays off better than investment in advertising or R&D. Some of the key impact areas on revenue:...read more

• Business process automation
• Increase operation efficiencies, scalability
• Customer service improvement with automation
• Sales process enhancement with technology automation

Payroll Most business leaders understand their biggest expense in business is Payroll. Regardless of staff working or waiting for technology issues to be resolved, you still have to provide payroll. All businesses have same hours weekly, monthly or yearly to generate desire revenue. As a business leader, we all want our teams to invest more, if not all of their time on revenue generating items. Consider time spent on following items instead of revenue generating items: ...read more

• Training issues: Employee searching solutions on-line or waiting for answer
• Technology related issues
• Coordinating technology issues/solution
• Business process issues – lack of technology process
• Turn-overs and training gaps
• Lack of documentation for both process and technology
• Approval and ordering process for hardware and software purchases

Soft Cost:  Being inefficient and unproductive has a cost. Sometimes it’s the result of the employee not having the capabilities to perform the job, but in a large number of cases it’s because the company’s operations, business approach, management and workflow are outdated and antiquated. It’s how the company conducts business that raises its soft costs. Companies that actively try to reduce their soft costs are able to improve efficiencies and productivity. It helps to free up valuable time, conserve company resources and streamline operations so that employees can do what they do best...read more

Top 3 Ways to improve Profit Margin       

Process: Most modern businesses deploy IT process to align their technology with business goals as on-going basis. IT process also runs ongoing testing and gap analysis to update IT Strategy, roadmaps and budget. This will support the entire organization’s technology needs, from running the service desk to driving innovation. And IT Process should also eliminate all HR and business risks...read more      

IT Strategy: Accidental success is dangerous. Strategy is “how we succeed.” Every organization require a roadmap for IT operations for cost and resource planning. And detailed documented IT Strategy with budget will provide insights to operation improvement and efficiencies. Having a clear understanding of the business is crucial to creating an IT strategy that aligns with, enables, and drives the business forward...read more

Discipline – People: Peter Drucker (borrowing from Marshall McLuhan) wrote that “neither technology or people determines the other, but each shapes the other.” All business improvements start and ends with people. Discipline and commitment to improvement by both leadership and staff is key to drive any improvement. Business success stems from having the right people and the right processes in place.

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We tend to think of strong leadership as being decisive, persistent and focused. However, according to Al Pittampalli, a consultant who has helped NASA, Boeing, IBM and others, modern leaders also need to be more flexible and ready to change course.

We all know that we need to adapt to change. It turns out adapting to change isn’t only necessary, it’s the speed at which we adapt to change provide competitive advantage...read more

The introduction of new technologies, operational changes or strategic changes in organizations, all generates pain and frustration for business leaders and staff...read more

Almost every activity within the IT operations, simple or complex, involves change and requires a corresponding change management effort.

This requires an effective change management methodology to successfully manage changes and reap the desired benefits...read more

Top 3 items to consider for operational change

Impact on Departments: All department usually have their own set of operational system(s) so it’s critical for business leader to understand how any change will impact operations of each department. For example, if department provides customer service any interruption during business hours will impact, revenue and customer service staff...read more

Business Process Impact: Modern business processes are all technology dependent, from shipping to accounting, purchasing, manufacturing, customer services and so on. There’s always process hand off or process flow connection. For example, shipping may start their process as soon as accounting department completes their process or customer service completes their purchase order process. In each case, these processes are dependent on technology. During any technology changes, impact on business process hand off usually cause frustration among teams and impact on customer service...read more

Impact on People: Research on stress shows that the degree of clarity around what will happen and when it will happen; and the ability to connect cause and effect is the main factor influencing their stress level. In other words, the more control an employee has in any situation, the more change, challenge, and uncertainty they can handle without becoming stressed out...read more

Top 3 items to minimize impact of change

 Process & Strategy: Investing time and efforts to develop strategy and roadmaps will not only allow you to communicate plans to entire team but also measure your execution against benchmark defined in roadmap...learn more

Execution & Communication: Keep employees informed by providing regular communications. Change communications is never a one-and-done event; keeping employees informed is something that you will have to do throughout every step of the change process. Studies have found that continual communication is a leading factor in a transformation’s success...read more

 Support Structure: The degree of clarity around organizational and departmental goals, possible scenarios, current state of affairs, how the changes will affect the employee, and how the employee’s performance contributes to business goals. And during any change execution, your staff will have questions, concerns and require support during or after implementations...read more

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“Over the next five years, great customer success will become a critical competitive advantage for companies, just like great customer support is today” Michael Redbord

Customer Experience and Revenue impact

According to Forrester Research, good client experience can lead to client retention, enrichment and advocacy, which all have loyalty-driven revenue potential. While hard numbers on customer experience-revenue relationships can be difficult to come by, research done by Harvard Business Review shows there is a direct link between customer experience and annual revenue increase. For transaction companies, clients who had the best experiences were shown to spend 140% more than those who were shown to have the poorest experience.

Here’s facts on customer service:

• 47% of customers say they’ll stop buying from a company if they have a subpar experience.
• The same study reveals that 76% of customers now say it’s easier than ever to take their business elsewhere.
• Bad customer service will cost you and your company money.Research indicates that in the U.S. alone, $62 billion is lost each year due to poor customer service.
• 70% of the customer's journey is based on how the customer feels they are being treated. (McKinsey)
• 90% of Americans use customer service as a factor in deciding whether or not to do business with a company. (American Express)

31 Customer Service Stats to Know in 2019

Top 3 ways technology can improve Customer Service

Technology – Centralized Data: There's a lot of innovation and excitement about new tools and technologies to improve customer service and success. And customer related data can be generated by any of these tools/technologies such as email, text messages, chatbots, artificial intelligence (AI), Excel files, video, CRM (customer relationship management) systems, websites and many more. This presents a challenge to keep track of all the data from multiple sources and provide expected customer experience. It creates challenge for organization and leaves no option for them to centralize all data either by consolidation, integration of various systems or with common repositories...read more on IT Impact

Self-Serving Portals - Knowledge base: Adding a portal that your customers can access anytime on their convenient is one of the key components to a successful in customer service strategy. There are many benefits of a customer self-service portal – for both the business and its customers. Benefits of self service can include more accessibility, reduction in wait times for support, freeing up your team’s time, decreasing costs, and even increasing customer acquisition...read more on soft cost

Automations – Feedback and Follow ups: Resent research finds that almost 85% issues with customer service is in follow ups. Either it’s training issues with customer service representatives or they don’t have tools/technologies that can make it easy for them to follow up. Therefore, it can be a smart move for you to invest in automated customer service tools if your team can't keep up with your current customer demand. Automating your customer service functions and follow ups will help save your reps time and improve the customer's experience with your brand.

3 Key steps to improve Customer Service Process:

Plan & RoadMap: To provide excellent customer service, you first need to understand their needs, experiences, and pain points. Gather customer feedback, build your customer service strategy and standards around your customer needs and expected customer experience. And then educate and train your staff, an organization that shares a customer service vision, and teaches customer service skills, will provide a better customer service experience than an organization that leaves the front-line employees untrained and unprepared for dealing with customer issues...read on IT Strategy

Measure and Benchmarks: Customer service teams needs to understand what the target is so they can help the organization reach their corporate objectives. Build goals and objectives to measure success/failure key points in your customer service strategy and provide tools for your staff to benchmark their progress against key points...read more

Continues Improvement: Build continues improvement process part of your customer service strategy. Ensure that your customer service representatives have complete knowledge of your product, services, and pricing plans. Customer experience is an area that needs constant nurturing and care and with a greater focus on customer experience strategy, companies will realize a positive impact on customer loyalty, higher retention and increased revenues...read more on process

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The request for proposal (RFP), RFI, RFP, RFQ, RFT is the standard practice in public sector and government organizations for purchasing professionals to source critical products and services. The RFP process provides a familiar, well-established structural approach for purchasing professionals of all experience levels, ability and market knowledge to make critical sourcing decisions according to their specification. However, when it comes to RFP process for technology related services, it lacks innovation, business focus and has critical shortfalls.

When growing your business, your most precious resource isn't money, it's time. You can't buy yourself more time, which is why you have to make every decision with timing in mind..read more

When assessing any business improvement decision, you have to figure out whether your action plan needs to be put into effect now or whether it can wait. Some companies operate permanently in crisis mode, treating everything as urgent; others apply a more strategic approach and rely on an intuitive sense for timing entry into new markets, for instance, or initiating new product development...read more

Based on recent study, the #1 reason why business leaders struggle with decisions around technology is “Priorities aren’t clear”.

Here’s top 3 symptoms for not having priorities align when struggling with decisions

Waiting for future events or project to make decision: Both business and the technology world become over-complex than ever, making decisions right is also complex, and delaying critical decision(s) because of some future project is natural decision. However, most successful business leaders understand that by adding more time to IT operations, it doesn’t eliminate or reduce soft cost, but it will increase both business risks and soft cost...read more on soft cost

Here’s few items to consider:

• In IT Department, an opportunity cost is always many times higher than status quote. How would your decision lower or increase technology impact on business?
• Business impact or soft cost in payroll/profit margin will only increase by adding more time to delay decision. How will decision control this cost?

Too busy – not enough time to take on business improvements: A common reason leaders take time to deliberate is to collect more data. In some cases, urgent or rushed decisions result when managers rely on opinion or gut instinct. However, in contrast, too much irrelevant information is also cause of delay in decision process. Seeing reliability and meaningful data gives you more confidence and clarity or your decision process...read more on impact

During the busy time in business operations, any interruption in Technology (IT) and business process have much higher impact in cost. An hour interruption during normal business operations will have less impact but consider same hour when so many dependencies on technology and people have to complete their work.

No budget to take on additional cost: Technology cost is usually a small expense compare to other business expenses however impact of technology on payroll and revenue is many times higher. Business and technology process improvements supposed to automate many areas of your business, measure and eliminate negative impact on payroll and revenue. Any small improvement in IT Process will deliver many times higher saving is payroll hours and growth in revenue. If you are struggling with budget to improve your business productivity, consider payroll hours wasted every month and cost of any business risk, it would be many times higher...read more on strategy

Consider following:

• Technology issues or business risks (security, HR, data etc) don’t wait for slow time or your other projects to complete. In contrary, these issues occur during most busy time to cause business interruptions.
• Operational cost for IT is always on-going similar to payroll, you don’t need new budget with only exception if you can eliminate technology soft cost or not for your organization…..read more
• Change like any process improvement seems difficult unless you have detailed plan and proper resources to implement but consider cost of not improving your IT Process or managing business risks...read more

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Many companies are beginning to view IT as a strategic function. As more businesses become technology-driven, the IT skills gap will continue to grow. It will become more difficult and costly to staff an internal IT department with the best talent moving forward. Business leaders are constantly faced with decision to whether hire in house IT Staff or outsource services to local IT service providers. Both options have pros and cons but cost usually is the driving factor.

What's the total cost of hiring each new employee? It may be more than you

 think.

Average in house IT Staff base salary per year (based on glassdoor salaries)

• IT Support Staff: $64k
• IT Network Administrator: $75k
• IT Business Analyst: $80k
• IT Consultant/Manager: $108k

+ Plus, Cost of Benefits - $13K per year   (bls.gov – Network Alliance)

Payroll Tax & Worker’s Comp, Pension Benefits and Health Benefits

+ Plus, Cost of overhead & IT - $17k per year  (gnapartners)

Supplies, Office Space, Equipment and IT Allocation

Additional Hidden Cost:

• Cost of Employee Turnover” $63K +/-
• Overtime Plus $2800 +/- per year
• Mistakes $170K +/- per year

Strong performance is a prerequisite for survival in today’s highly competitive world, leaders across the organizations are asking for help to understand how technology related compliance can provide competitive advantage.

In general, all technology or IT related operational changes are mostly considered back office changes and work is usually schedule for after or before business hours. In addition, most leaders also understand that both technology and business are dependent on continues improvements and without change there is no progress, then why some business leaders are reluctant or resistance to any IT or technology related change? Is it even possible to avoid changes in both technology and business? Is there a cost for delay?

Technological change impacts every department in organization -- but its impact on the sales has been particularly dramatic. Modern sales department behave almost nothing like their predecessors, it is the public face of the company, and therefore needs to reflect all the values and knowledge housed within the organization. If your sales team isn't taking advantage of the latest technology to generate revenue, they should be...read more impact of IT on revenue

IDG Enterprise published a research from a study across many organizations to better understand technology impact on high performing sales organizations. Sales teams that employ the help of technology see an increase in revenue by up to (58%) sales opportunities by (54%) deal sizes (44%) and conversion rates up by (38%). That’s not to mention noted improvements in opportunity pipeline management, territory management and customer onboarding.

Here’s 3 ways your IT & Sales Department together can impact  your revenue

Education/Information: Effective communication and providing information to perspective clients are key to success for all sales professionals. Either your organization is selling products or services, your sales staff require to educate prospective clients and/or provide information. Management teams required to enable collaboration with sales and IT teams to align technology with their sales process. Your IT teams can equip your sales teams with tools and technologies to deliver communication and information thru multiple medium or channels. There are many cost-effective cloud solutions that can be easily be integrated with your current sales technology i.e LinkedIn Learning, Google Education, Microsoft Education etc. This will allow your prospects to access information about your product or service before ever speaking to your sales team.

Sales Automation and Analytics: Your sales team required detailed market and pipeline analytics to make quick decisions and they also needs own performance benchmark in terms of pipeline growth and success ratios. There are many analytical tools, designed to turn datasets into usable information, are built for quick decision-making process for sales management and not to be confuse with marketing analytical data i.e SEO, Website analytics etc....read more on low performing IT investment

Track performance and identify areas for improvement. The most important thing you can do to improve your sales team's performance is to figure out how well they are performing now and then make a plan to help them to do better. This required greater collaboration with your IT department to provide systems and platforms to tracks sales performance throughout the sales cycle, so managers can analyze and measure how each member of the sales team is doing -- and then determine where he or she needs help...read more on decision process

It is a truth universally acknowledged, that firefighting is one of the noblest professions in the history of humankind. However, in the business context, the term ‘Firefighting’, refer to critical situations that require emergency allocation of resources to tackle unforeseen problems.

If You Can’t Measure It, You Can’t Improve It … Peter Drucker 

Most business leaders are familiar with the basic IT reports they should be getting monthly, but many are less familiar with the kinds of management reports available that could help their businesses increase profits and improve productivity.

In every professional context, analysis and reporting on effectiveness, investment, activity and results is paramount. Business leaders needs this information to form their decision. However, making decision based on wrong information will have consequences. So, what should business leaders focus on?

Business Impact Analysis Reports VS IT (Technology) Management Reports

Unexpected events and circumstances can spring on the organization in its day-to-day operations. Business Impact Analysis, or BIA, refers to the process of determining, assessing and evaluating the potential effects of an interruption or stoppage of critical operations, functions and processes of the business due to an accident, emergency, or disaster.

Successful organization constantly measure, review and enhance their IT Strategy based on Business Impact Reports. Senior management will rely on the contents of the BIA Report when developing strategies…Martin at ClaverismTechnology investment project converts the cash spent by a business into financial benefits that exceed the costs involved… ICAEW is a founder member of the Global Accounting Alliance. (Download book on this topic by ICAEW)

Focus your IT Department to provide Business Impact Reports rather than IT Reports

Business Impact Reports: Technology is usually a small item on organization expenditure list compare to other business operational items. However, it has most impact on all major business operations. A variety of reports can be developed to assess the current conditions of the technology impact, its operations, and the management procedures that are used to ensure the sustainability, productivity, and/or profitability of the business and all its areas.

Here’s top 3 reports business must review:

The role of IT departments within business has expanded well beyond those responsibilities they’ve traditionally been associated with. Today’s IT departments are more than necessary expenses. They’re a significant force for change, providing real competitive advantages and becoming true profit centers — just as responsible for generating revenue as any sales department. ...read more on trust in IT Dept.

Research indicates that 74% of IT leaders say the business teams they partner with believe IT is the biggest driver of business success.

The IT Department: What They Do Vs. What they should do

3 most critical functions of IT Department.....read more on IT Dept.

Get most return from your payroll investments: Financially savvy business leaders understand the return on investment on human capital – viewing their employees as their most important business asset. And it’s not the cost of payroll is an issue but time and lower return on investment is their major issue. Any technology related interruption, waiting period or simply user experience results in waste of payroll time/investment and human energy. Most business leaders understand that being efficient on payroll provides competitive advantage with lean operations consider all organization have same amount of time from their staff...read more

Reduce & Manage business risks: Reality of both sides of the modern technology that it introduces many new business risks but also allows business to reduce and manage risks. Unfortunately, most business leaders focus on first part and don’t get to reduce and manage risks aspect of the technology. Risk is a natural part of the business landscape. If left unmanaged, the uncertainty can spread like weeds. If managed effectively, losses can be avoided, and benefits obtained. Risk management is the process of identifying, evaluating, assessing and controlling threats to an organization and these threats, or risks, could stem from a wide variety of sources, including financial uncertainty, legal liabilities, strategic management errors, accidents, natural disasters, Human Resources etc...read more

2 driving forces to generate revenue: Your sales dept and IT Dept.

If you ask anyone to name the most important elements of any long-term, satisfying relationship, trust is usually near the top of any list. This is certainly true for personal relationships, but it is also true for business relationships. Most business leaders understand that the only way to effectively run a business is to build not only partnerships, but trusted partnerships with customers, business colleagues, channel alliances, and staff. In today’s hectic business economy, developing trust between organizations has become critical than ever. By adopting a trusted partnership model across your enterprise, the sky’s the limit for success...read more on trust in IT Dept.

Recent Gallup research shows that the problem is, only 31% of B2B customers believe their supplier understands their needs, and only half of B2B customers (54%) strongly agree that their sales or account teams are trusted advisers.

Here are 3 key recommendations to consider for building trusted, successful partnerships with IT Service organizations

Financial goals are aligned: Investing time in understanding financial goals of each other will provide perspective if both organizations are moving in similar directions. If your organizational goals are to reduce interruptions in business to get most return from your payroll investment, business leaders need to understand that if delivering these results is financially beneficial for your service provider’s organization. In a contrary, if your service provider’s goals are to bill as many hours and sell products to be profitable, you will have a conflict. Whatever business results you are expecting, ensure delivering these results is aligned with your service providers financial goals...read more on impact

Business results or organizational goals are aligned: As a business leader, understand that business results that you are expecting from your service provider is aligned with their organizational goals. For example, if you are dealing with training issues, compliance issues, Strategy or documentation issues, make sure that delivering these results is core competency and organizational goals for your service provider. If compliance is critical for your organization and its low priority for your service provider, it will not deliver on your expected business results and will waste a lot of time building partnerships...read more on business risks