I was recently invited to attend one of our clients technology planning days. My role was to provide support and guidance, ensuring the suggestions and decisions were achievable and in the best interest of the organisation. Midway through the session the CEO asked, “how can we innovate or use technology to improve our business”. It was interesting to observe how everyone suddenly became experts in the latest and greatest technology. There were some great and very valid points raised but, playing devils advocate, I began to ask a few questions.
- 1 Have you had any experience with the solution?
- 2 Have you seen it in operation?
- 3 It is good because someone said so?
Over many years in the technology business I have seen a lot of clients get distracted by the “Bells and Whistles” pushed forward by fancy marketing or smart sales strategies. Clients forget to investigate how the product or service can help their business become more efficient and/or profitable, and whether it’s a good fit with the rest of their business tools.
When a product distracts the client from it’s core business and replaces it with fancy dashboards and animated graphs then it’s quite likely the product is not suitable.
As business leaders it’s important that we select and implement products that help our businesses and staff become more efficient. If the bright dashboards and colourful reports do this then that’s brilliant. My advice though would be to do your due diligence and ensure you are selec:ng a product or service that adds value to your organisation.