How Much Tech is Too Much?

Although it might make sense to have the most-recent technological achievements to keep your business competitive, sometimes too much tech can be just that—too much. Here are some ways to find out what you need and what you don’t from Ramon Ray, technology evangelist and editor of Smallbiztechnology.com.

If you have too much tech at your disposal, you might find you’re not really using it, he says. “A lot of companies may have all the best PDAs, two-way pagers and BlackBerries in the world, but nobody is using them,” he says. If you find your new purchases to be useless, or they’re not being used as intended, then you have too much or you’re not using it properly, he adds.

Web sites are one example where many businesses err on the side of using technology excessively, Ray says. You may want to have a Web site with high-tech, Flash-based graphics, but what if your common customer is on dial-up or doesn’t have the patience for such a busy page? Software is another area where businesses have trouble balancing. Some businesses install an expensive application or program, thinking it will do everything for them, but they eventually find it’s overkill, he says. These situations occur because people rush to buy the software before carefully considering the impact it will have on their operations.

“One of the common misconceptions is, ‘We have a problem at our business, we’re not doing something as efficiently as we could, we’re not answering our customers’ requests as fast as we could, let’s throw technology onto it,’” Ray says. “When in actuality, it is their business processes that are incorrect. They’re adding a technology process to a poor business process and using technology to make it worse.”

When deciding on how much you need, listen to your customers/clients, Ray suggests. “I think your customers can be a huge resource for what you can be doing and what you can’t do with technology,” he says. Also, listen to your employees. You may learn about a new process or hot marketing program that you think will revolutionize the industry but your employees may know better and suggest otherwise, he says.

And don’t forget to keep an eye on competitors, Ray says. “That doesn’t mean you have to follow the leader, but I think it can’t hurt to have that as a barometer to look at those who are leaders in the field and see what are they doing, what aren’t they doing,” he says.

Getting help from an IT consultant can assist in tempering or monitoring what you’re doing, Ray says. But be careful that you don’t get oversold on technology from an “expert.” “That’s where I think validation of the competitor and getting a second opinion really comes into play,” Ray says. “Some out there might say, ‘Yes, you need to spend $50,000 on this application,’ or, ‘Everyone should have PDAs or Treos in your company.’ When really, maybe only a few people should have it,” he says.

That said, don’t be afraid of technology. “You don’t want too much, you don’t want to have too little,” Ray says. “In my opinion, overall, it’s better to have too little because you could always add more, and you don’t want to waste money. On the other hand, you don’t want to have too little and your competition beats you. But do understand the market you’re in and that should determine the way you should go.”