7 Small Business Technology Strategy Plans

In this blog we cover 7 small business technology strategy plans for you.  As a foundation building block, we focus on cloud technology as the best value for growth and operations.

In order for small businesses to grow, the ability to save money and produce more with less becomes a focal point for their business.  These common questions ring true today:

• What are the technologies used in small business?
• What is a business technology strategy?
• How can technology improve small business?
• What is the best strategy for small business?
• What do small business strategy examples look like?

So here are 7 small business technology strategy plans to focus your attention on as you grow your business and answer the questions above.

Small Business Technology Strategy Plans

Before diving into each of these strategy plans, you need to complete an exercise to identify your small business needs.  This exercise will help establish the requirements for your business.

Cloud Technology Strategy Plan

Build your business on a cloud platform.  Ten (10) to fifteen (15) years ago, small businesses needed to invest in a server along with software.  However, today, you can invest in cloud solutions (Software as a Service) to start and scale your business.

First, choose a platform for your email and communication requirements and needs.  Why does this matter?  All communication and information associated with your business belongs to the business owner and a single platform captures the content in one place.

If an employee leaves your business, the work and effort they performed for you will not be lost.  Also, training and process documentation resides in one easy location for all to access.

Recommendation: 

We recommend the Microsoft 365 Business Premium (M365BP) solution to get started.  If you want to learn more about M365BP, read this article on Seven (7) Powerful Advantages with Microsoft 365 Business Premium.

Marketing Technology

Every business needs to promote themselves in some way shape or form.

First of all, understand who your audience is.  Create and build great content for them and become a go to source of information.

Next take advantage of commonly used technologies for small business marketing such as:

• Google My Business – especially if you are a local small business.  Customers in today’s market use the search term small business near me which will find your business if you are on Google My Business.
• Social Media Platform – start small with just one platform that meets your needs such as LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, YouTube, or TikTok
• Marketing Automation Software – the right automation software can remove busy work that will bog your small business down.
• Customer Relationship Management – more on this as a next step but this helps to understand your audience.
• Analytics and Reporting – more on this later in the blog post but you need to make decisions on what is working and not working.

As a way to standardize your business image, document company colors, logo design, and other customer facing templates.  Store these in one central location like Microsoft SharePoint so your employees can retrieve and utilize your standard information.

Recommendation:  

The most important step is to understand your small business technology strategy needs and choose solutions that will help you achieve your desired marketing goals.

Customer Relation Management Technology

Do you have a list of all your customers?  Once you define your avatar, do you track how well your customers fit?  In some cases, your avatar or audience might change.

If you audience starts to change, your marketing strategy might need to change.  Keeping track of your customers is important.  You do need to be aware of GDPR type laws and regulations.

As your business grows, you will want to invest in a cloud CRM solution.  You might wonder what is the best solution for your business?  It really depends on your requirements and business needs.

The best advice, do your homework and review the technologies available.  Here are a few to consider:

• Salesforce – cloud-based CRM platform that offers a wide range of features and functionality, including sales and marketing automation, and customer service and support.
• Microsoft Dynamics 365 – cloud-based CRM and enterprise resource planning (ERP) platform that offers a variety of tools for managing customer relationships, as well as other aspects of the business.
• NetSuite – cloud-based CRM solution with a large range of tools to manage customer interaction and relationships design to drive business growth.
• Pegasystems – cloud-based CRM solution that offers a range of tools for managing customer interaction and relationships strives to help create personalized and seamless customer experience.

Recommendation:

Think in these terms.  Will this solution fit into my business for the long term?  Does this create more segregation in our business processes or unite the flow of our business processes?  Does this minimize other technology needs?

It is very important to evaluate the features and capabilities of different CRM software options and choose the one that best meets your small business technology strategy needs.

Technology Refresh Strategy

Do you consider the lifecycle of technology and how it effects the performance of your employee?  Consider these simple strategies and thoughts.

Employee Devices

• Warranty – Purchase a 4-year plan next business day support for the hardware and plan to replace the device after 4 years.
• Technology Specifications – Invest in these minimum PC specifications – CPU: i7 or equivalent, Memory: 16 GB – more for heavy spreadsheet use, Storage – 500 GB minimum.

Firewalls and Routers

• Warranty – Purchase a 4-year plan for 24x7x365 4-hour response for critical business support and renew the warranty annually for up to 8 years.
• Technology Specifications – This really depends on your business.  We highly recommend consulting a network expert to address your needs.

Recommendation:

We’ve provided our thoughts and recommendations above in the comments.  This small business technology strategy focuses on a cloud environment which allows for the greatest flexibility and growth.

One other key component to this strategy plan is to know your budget.  What can your business afford to spend.

Business Process Plan

First step is to know your business processes.  We highly recommend for you to document them from start to finish.  Once you have them documented, understand your needs and requirements will be easier.

You can develop questions around, what software will help automate and streamline my business in order to increase productivity.

Finally develop questions around, what software and solutions will help keep your environment safe from cyberattacks.

Recommendation:

As we mentioned above, document your business processes.  This will also help you know how to train new employees and analyze where the small business flow breaks down.

Security Strategy

You need to implement a few key low-cost security strategies for your small business technology strategy plan:

• Risk Management Plan – Implement an annual risk management plan to prepare and guide your small business success.
• Incident Response Plan – Map out a plan on how your business will respond in a time of crisis.
• Security Awareness Plan – Train your employees on an annual basis what a secure intelligent business looks like.
• Update Plan – Implement a plan to keep your end user devices and technology infrastructure firmware and software updated.

Recommendation:

A simple small business technology strategy for security is to create a document library in SharePoint where all of your process documents reside.  These can be reviewed and accessed by all employees.

Reporting Strategy

A great reporting strategy will help gain insights and make data-driven decisions for your small business.  The following ideas and thoughts will help you out:

• Key Metrics – The first step for a great reporting strategy is to identify your key metrics.  Some examples include revenue, profits, customer acquisition, retention, and engagement.
• Data Sources – Connect to a wide range of data sources, including spreadsheets, databases, and cloud-based applications.
• Visualizations – Use visualizations to tell a compelling story with your data.
• Automation – Automate reports and dashboard results to stay up to date with the latest health of your business.

Stay tune to learn more about how Artificial Intelligence (AI) will play a key role in reporting and helping understand what future results may look like.

AI will become a huge competitive advantage in the near future and needs to be included in your small business technology strategy plan.

Recommendation:

PowerBI along with Microsoft 365 Business Premium provides a strong small business technology strategy for visualization and reporting with minimal extra cost for small businesses.

 

Small Business Technology Strategy Plan Conclusion

Technology as a business strategy is a journey.  Know where you want to go and map out the steps to accomplish your mission and goals.  Cloudz Biz provides blueprints and guides for technology in your business strategy.

Our goal here at Cloudz Biz is to promote technology for your digital transformation strategy and stay on top of small business technology trends.

Stay tuned for technology strategy examples that will enhance your small business.