Is Your Company’s Success Limited by a Dated Technology Strategy?
The other day I was with my family at a well known car dealer. (I came to tag along and look at the cool cars while my daughter and son in law made a purchase.) The sales representative was doing her best to show comparisons of leasing versus owning. She was doing her utmost to answer questions, but her computer was running slow. She kept her cool, but after awhile her frustration began to show. She began to apologize for the delay. She mentioned that the dealer has been promising an upgrade for quite some time. She even mentioned that she tried her personal computer recently to see if it was any more reliable.
The sales manager even came out of his office and introduced himself. He did his best to assist by answering questions while the computer loaded. This episode got me to think about the bigger picture. Why was the dealer not willing to upgrade the technology and provide the best tools to the sales team and other departments? This obviously is an ongoing issue.
What is the real problem here? Could it be that a large technology purchase was looming? Is the leadership team really aware of the impact of their dated system? Do customers wonder if a slow computer system is an indicator of other issues with the dealer? Potentially, how much business has the dealer lost because of the slow system?
Clearly none of the above questions should be of primary concern to the customer. All of these questions should be addressed by the leadership team before the customer ever enters the showroom. With such a big purchase at hand, buyers expect sales systems to work with precision. Clearly the dealer has some roadblocks with their computer system. The issue is that they need a system upgrade, and it is expensive. Their choices are to bite the bullet and pay for the upgrade, or they can wait a little longer and see how things progress …. Bad idea. Regrettably, waiting is never a winning strategy. We all know that when you wait, you wait for the prices to go up or you wait for a catastrophe. Catastrophes always cost much more to remedy. Incidentally, every time I have been called to the site of a technology disaster the decision makers always regret that they did not address their system issues beforehand.
In this situation, there is another choice for the dealer to consider. Instead of a costly technology system upgrade project, they can get the system upgrade with no upfront technology hardware expense. They can leverage private cloud computing sold as a utility service. The price is based on a fixed monthly per user price with all of the system hardware, software, and support included. It really is that simple. There are no hardware purchases to finance. The internet service is also included in the per user price.
What about your business? How satisfied are your employees with their technology tools? Do you lend a listening ear to know how well your system performs? Do your employees feel that your system is reliable, or do they wait for your system to catch up? After all - they can always check their phones and zone out while waiting for your system to catch up.
Another root cause of confusion when considering a technology upgrade is that many business owners still rely on old school technology intellect. Many IT directors and technicians use a dated and costly strategy of trying to build a new system with hardware, software, labor, support, and lots of outdated opinions. Many old school technology professionals still recommend building systems just like you build a building - buy the components, create a schedule and get started when it's convenient for them. Your business will have to wait in the interim.
This old server technology is clearly no longer the best choice for a winning technology strategy. These same professionals tell you that cloud technologies are not secure, and if you lose internet service, then your system will not work. Newsflash, your on premise servers have many more security vulnerabilities, and if you lose internet service locally, then these systems will be inoperable as well. There are backup internet options that you can rely on. Cloud servers offer state of the art security measures that are simply not feasible in your server closet.
Perhaps the people recommending dated technology have not kept up or are not interested in adopting modern technology. Some technology professionals do not like to change and adapt. Changing may also impact their profit centers.
Due to the proliferation of data centers, software enhancements, and internet advances, there is a more cost effective and powerful solution for your business system needs. Large companies in all sectors use data centers and associated technology for their processing. Saying that it is not secure nor reliable does not make any sense. (Large companies have adopted this strategy for years)
Today, there is a unified technology strategy which provides security, speed, and significant cost savings versus old school methodology. It also features scalability and has technology advancements included as they become available.
To learn more about leveraging this strategy for your business, contact your NthaCloud sales technologist for more information. We offer a no obligation consultation.
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