Is Your Company’s Tech Slowing You Down?

May 11, 2021

The whole point of a company adopting new technology is to help speed up productivity. If that technology slows you down, there is clearly a problem – and you need to find a solution. 

There are a number of ways in which tech can hamper a business’s productivity instead of improving it:

  • Your company's tech keeps breaking. This could be causing periods of downtime in which work cannot be done. You may also find yourself wasting valuable time trying to repair faults.
  • Your company tech requires a lot of maintenance. This maintenance may stop faults from occurring, however you could be wasting just as much time carrying out checks or having to run updates.
  • Your company tech is complicated to use. Learning how to use it could take time, and it could take more time then teaching employees or customers how to use it. The complicated nature of the tech may even lead to frequent mistakes being made that need to be rectified – wasting further time. 

If you frequently experience any of these tech problems, then it could be time to reassess how you use your tech. Below are just some of the ways in which you can use tech to speed up your business instead of slowing it down. 

Know when to hire in-house IT support

Your company is growing and so are your tech needs. The more machines and programs you are using, the more tech problems you are likely to encounter. It may reach a point in which tech problems are very frequent. At this stage, you should seriously consider hiring an in-house IT technician. 

In-house IT support could also be useful for managing your cybersecurity and maintaining your website/company software. Larger companies may eventually require teams of in-house IT support.

Know when to outsource IT support

Hiring a large team of in-house IT technicians could start to cost you a lot of money and you’ll be spending more time managing these employees. Eventually, it could be worth outsourcing IT technicians to handle tasks such as monitoring your network, managing your website or managing software. This involves paying another company to handle your tech needs.

Outsourced technicians may also be able to help with day-to-day problems. An ITSM system could be used to help notify remote technicians of faults straight away so that they can be fixed. It could work out cheaper and more efficient than hiring in-house technicians.

Streamline your software

How many different programs is your company using? Having to constantly switch between different platforms could start to slow down your productivity. Consider whether there is a way of streamlining your software so that all your company information and processes aren’t spread out all over the place.

A few ways to do this could include:

  • Migrating to an all-in-one program that does everything you need.
  • Finding a way to integrate certain programs so that information can be more easily transferred between them.
  • Building your own custom all-in-one software to carry out all of the tasks you need.

It could be worth hiring IT consultants to help you find the best option for your business. 

Update old/overly basic tech

Old technology could be slowing your business down. This could include old software or old hardware. For instance, an old accounting program may frequently encounter bugs and may have limited features – a modern program could be faster and could allow you to automate more tasks. An old wi-fi router could meanwhile offer limited signal strength and may be slow at times – upgrading to a new wi-fi router could result in faster and more reliable internet. 

There can be a certain convenience to using old familiar tech, but there may come a point when it becomes more a hindrance. Old digital tech is also more likely to be a security risk – you may even find that old software is no longer supported by the vendor, leaving it vulnerable to modern forms of cyberattack.

Mark Asquith

That British podcast guy, Mark is co-founder of Captivate.fm, the world's only growth-oriented podcast host. A Harvard, TEDx, Podcast Movement and Podfest speaker (amongst many more!), he's a wildly approachable Brit and Star Wars/DC Comics geek.

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