Finding The Right Technical Advice

Written by Rick Schissler on February 26, 2018. Posted in Uncategorized

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In recent blogs, I have addressed the importance of building and maintaining a quality communication system both inside and outside your business. Communications is the glue if you will that not only holds your business together but allows it to grow and prosper. When it comes to communications in today’s business, technology is the key. Technology, its selection, implementation and maintenance is a determining factor in your company’s ability to compete and expand.

One of the major challenges when dealing with technology is to simply understand it and how it can best work for your business. Many of us have a broad or simple understanding, but very few of us have the time, inclination, background and or necessary skill to really properly evaluate what can and will work for our company. Therefore, the need to engage with outside advisors or experts is a necessity. The selection of the right advisor for your business thus becomes a very important undertaking for you as the company’s owner. Your willingness to engage and outsource the role of technology guru in your company will be one of the most important business decisions you make in the history of your business.

The place to start looking for your own technology advisor is with your IT service company. Your IT service company should be able to help you at the very least put together a plan for IT needs. In some cases, they will have the ability and expertise to help you develop your entire communication plan. The IT component of your communication plan is at the core of the overall plan. Therefore it, is not a big leap for a ‘smart’ IT advisor to have the skill and ability to connect the dots if you will for the overall plan.

If your IT service company is not up to the task of advising you on the entire communication plan then you can look for a communication consultant who is more of a generalist. As is the case when hiring any outside consultant, you should thoroughly check their background, resume and especially their business references. In the face to face interview pay attention on how well they understand how your company works and communicates. Once you select someone then you need to be comfortable and confident enough to trust them with your all-important communication system.

At this point, you are ready to finalize the selection of a technical advisor. You need to determine how much you are willing to spend and the terms of your arrangement with the advisor. Your budget is, always subject to what the company can afford cash flow wise, but there are other factors I encourage you to look at. When you look at and hopefully project your return on investment, you consider both the short and long-term returns of the project. The impact of a well-done upgrade of your system can pay off in ways that are hard to put a dollar figure on.
The agreement or arrangement you enter into with an advisor should fit your business. There is no one size fits all for this kind of project. Make a list of priorities and make sure that your advisor signs on to all of them. The timeline of the project is another critical area that needs to meet your needs. Your business needs to be able to operate with very little if any disruption during the upgrade. This may require overtime and working after hours to make the change over less disruptive to daily operations.

My main encouragement is don’t be cheap when you go through this process. That can mean different things to different business owners. The point I want to make is not to say spend more money than you have or want to spend, but make sure your communication system will put you and your team in the position to grow and prosper.

[logo width=”150″] can help you build or upgrade your businesses’ communication system. Call Ben (713) 682-4000 or email him at benschissler@wtsvc.net to get his input on how to build a better system for you and your business.

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For more help tricks and other business related topics, check out Rick’s website at www.1bestconsult.com