Technology Investments: How to gain maximum value?

How to gain maximum value from technology investments for your business?

The slow economy stemmed from the COVID-19 pandemic is forcing organizations to identify and cut all unnecessary costs. Unfortunately, technology investments also fall prey to these budget cuts. It happens when businesses invest in technology without adequate planning. 

According to a survey, 29.2% of respondents holistically examine their technology usage while searching for efficiencies. It may mean canceling or delaying new projects and purchases or reducing or canceling maintenance and support contracts for existing investments.

Research by Accenture reveals that while 47% of the companies are building their future growth strategies on mobility and technology, considering inefficient technology as one of the top hindrances to their growth. It is clear that IT-led innovation is the need of the hour, and 82% of companies are investing specifically in technology for improved growth.

Simply put, now, it is crucial to improve the return on investment of resources, optimize costs, and select the right solution when making sourcing decisions.

Read more: Navigate The Business Impact Of COVID-19 With These Hot Technologies 

Here, we share a few tips to help you gain full value from your technology investments.

Ways to optimize costs

Gartner reveals that optimizing costs is essential for businesses and is one of the best ways to control spending and attain cost reduction while maximizing business value.  

Optimizing costs should take into account:

• Automating and digitizing business operations
• Simplifying and standardizing applications, platforms, processes, and services
• Obtaining the best terms and pricing for business purchases

While this means ensuring that technology investments generate the maximum possible value, it also means cutting costs and considering how each technology investment drives business value.

Some technology may be expensive, but it doesn’t mean that it isn’t providing value to the organization. Expensive technology may already be optimized because of the value it generates, while inexpensive technology may be unused and wasted. Therefore, it is important to make the right decisions regarding purchasing hardware, software licenses, or cloud services contracts.

Once you have identified and mitigated what you do not need and what you need, there are no more costs to reduce. It is time to look at how to optimize technology assets.

Ways to get the most out of your tech investments

Despite the cutbacks and search for savings, many organizations continue to invest in technology projects and accelerate their digital transformation initiatives. However, even with the economic slowdown coupled with pandemic-related uncertainties, organizations that have performed well during 2020 are looking to increase resilience by reducing risks and demanding shorter ROI periods on investments.

That said, the key to maximize ROI is preparation. It is essential to know that you’ve selected the right solution and are ready for implementation. Several surveys done in the past suggest that the software chosen is rarely the reason for any IT project’s failure. And a few leaders even agree with this, revealing a lack of investment in preparation, project management, and implementation. Even the simplest of IT systems require some amount of work to install and configure. So, the more complex your environment is, the more careful you will have to be.

Read more: 11 Practices Followed by Leaders to Build Resilience and Ensure Rapid Business Recovery 

Key factors to consider while developing a technology strategy to improve corporate performance are:

Investment profile: Your management team must identify your IT investment percentage (allocated to build significant capabilities) versus the foundational investment. Ideally, foundational investments should not be more than 40% of the total annual investments.

Organization focus: You must identify whether a significant portion of your internal resources aims to drive innovation or growth. Also, find out if you have the proper operating processes in place to drive these investments.

Tenure: You will have to figure out if your workforce has the right experience and skills to achieve the target.

Investment economics: Move over traditional measures and instead identify newer ways to evaluate your projects and investments.

A few technologies worth investing

Following are some of the technologies worth investing in the present business scenario:

• Artificial Intelligence (AI)
• Blockchain
• Internet-of-Things (IoT)
• Cloud
• Cybersecurity
• Self-driving technology
• Streaming media

Tips for getting maximum value from technology investments

To get maximum value from your technology investments, you should:

• Be prepared with clear objectives and outcomes. You must ensure that your vision aligns with that of the new technology vendor.
• Ensure that you have people, processes, and governance for leveraging the technology when deployed, reducing the time to both value and ROI.
• Identify and assess your data sources’ quality to develop appropriate metrics for accuracy and completeness of data and check for any improvements.
• Invest in the implementation and system or process integrations to make sure they are carried out successfully. If you are using any third-party service provider for the implementation, ensure that you hire a reliable and trained team like Fingent.
• Identify users and key stakeholders and invest in their time to maintain the system.
• To reap benefits early in the project and demonstrate the value of initial investments, take a phased approach. Phasing could be by business unit, geography, or environment depending on the organizational structure and business goals. This will ensure that the project is manageable.
• Provide both initial and ongoing training in phases to allow end-users to familiarize themselves with the features and functionalities they have learned about before undergoing further training. That said, make sure the new users are also appropriately trained.
• Ensure that third-party consultants have completed their vendor training or certification programs before allowing them to use your tools. Also, check if you are using the latest version of the tool. If needed, arrange for additional training.

Read more: Fingent Speaks: What it Takes to Build a Successful Digital Transformation Strategy 

Be smart with your tech investments

With technology and digital transformation becoming more pervasive across all industries, technology investment can make a huge difference in winning or losing a business. By focusing on the tips discussed in this article, companies can maximize value from their technology investments.

Technology wins only if it can appease users. A bad customer experience forces the customer to switch from vendor A to vendor B. Not only should you identify and invest in the right technology, but make an emotional connection to craft human experiences that drive customer satisfaction and differentiate you from your rivals. 

Fingent helps you make a fortune out of tech investments by helping you leverage the latest technology trends. Our business technology consulting services focus on helping businesses tackle technology problems, attain business objectives, and derive value from tech and IT investments. Chat with an expert to learn more.