Choosing the right technology for your business may seem intimidating, but in this blog, Vana will break down the steps that you can use to help you select the right technology for any business application! Let’s get started.
Select the Right Technology – The Complete 12-Step Process
- Identify & create an analysis team – Start by getting key stakeholders, decision makers, contributors, SMEs and other key individuals on-board, and creating an analysis team. In addition, you may want to consider adding Subject Matter Experts (SMEs) from various disciplines that will be involved to round out your team.
- Evaluate your business needs – Think about what your unique business needs are and how different technologies may meet these needs. Consider your company’s current pain points, as well as your current – and future – needs.
What issue are you trying to solve? Do you need to bring in new business? Improve existing processes? Fix current issues with your existing technology systems? Answering these questions and evaluating your business needs will help you determine the ROI of your investment – and help you sell the cost and time of its implementation to stakeholders. - Identify key capabilities – Determine what features and capabilities are required for your project, and make sure to split these into “required” and “desired” capabilities. Beyond this, you can also include a “nice to have” category of features which may be useful – but are likely to be more limited in scope and importance.
When identifying key capabilities, think about which features bring the highest value to your business. For instance, there might be a feature that has a very high ROI.
Additionally, think about which features will be used the most, and by the highest number of users. Is it worth introducing a feature that will only be needed by a handful of users? Taking the time to identify the required, desired, and “nice-to-have” capabilities will keep you on track as you identify the proper technology for your business. - Perform a skills assessment – Look at your current team. Do you have employees with the skills to use the technology, or employees who can be trained to do so? Will you need to hire new staff? Can you augment your current team by bringing in third-party contractors on a temporary or permanent basis? Consider these questions when making your decision.
- Bring in an expert – If you require more expertise than you had when you were building your initial team, you can bring in an expert consultant at this point. These experts should fulfill specific roles and needs, with clear expectations on what they will provide and deliver.
- Identify barriers and roadblocks – If there are any barriers to adopting new technology, such as cost implementation time, resources, and user adoption now is the best time to identify them and to create solutions that will help you move past them.
- Consider both current and future needs – Don’t just think about the business needs of your company in the present, but make sure you extend your plan to the future and choose a futureproof technology that will last for years to come. Ensure your strategy will enable your solution to align with corporate and IT strategies now and into the future.
- Develop an agile roadmap – At this point, you can develop an agile project roadmap. This should be split into essential steps that must be done now, vs. non-essential steps that may be done at some point in the future. In order to ensure development is completed in an efficient manner, as well as meeting your ever-evolving requirements, it is critical that the development team follows an agile development process.
- Choose a technology stack – Depending on the technology you’re using, you can choose SaaS (Software as a Service) PaaS (Platform as a Service), IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service). These services can be deployed on the public cloud, private cloud, or on a hybrid cloud. For a breakdown of how these different technology stacks work and which one may be right for you, take a look at this article from Microsoft.
- Assess the effect on end user/customer experience – Make sure that you’re using technology that will improve end user and customer experiences otherwise, the investment may not be worth it.
- Perform a competitive analysis – Take a look at competing companies and think about how your investment in technology will allow you to compete more effectively in the market. Will your investment set you apart from competing companies, and allow you to gain more market share in your industry? How can your chosen technology help you accomplish this task?
- Calculate costs – Think about the costs of the solution itself, as well as implementation, training, and support to determine the overall cost and budget for your project. A realistic budget is important, so be honest about these costs.
Need Help Choosing the Right Technology? Contact Vana Solutions
At Vana Solutions, our consultants specialize in helping organizations select the right technology that will help them grow. Contact us now to learn more and schedule a consultation.
