While many business owners understand the importance of a tech strategy, they may not have a plan in place that looks ahead to the next four or five years, or even the next 12 months. Unfortunately, that leads to a reactive approach to technology. When businesses have a reactive approach to IT, it means unexpected expenses, downtime — and stress. It means:

• Computers running slow
• WiFi or network problems (that only get fixed as they come up)
• Band-aid approaches to tech support that lead to more technical problems

Ultimately, there is no plan in place to secure the network, ensure tech is working properly, or to optimize staff time using applications (that you are most likely already being paying for). And that can lead to more problems, more unexpected surprises, and wasted time and money. Companies end up falling behind the competition — losing customers and talented employees. What a Proactive IT Approach Looks Like A proactive IT approach means:

• Spending more time on business strategy, and less time putting out fires
• Predicting future costs for all tech needs, all within your budget
• Saving four hours per week, per employee utilizing applications you already pay for
• Protecting your business and employees from increasing cybersecurity threats

Building an Intelligent Technology Roadmap A proactive Intelligent Technology Roadmap gives businesses the strategy that they need to reduce stress around tech, and to achieve greater success. There are three parts to an effective Roadmap: Technology: This is the hardware and software needed to effectively run your business. You need to have that predictive budget and predictive plan around technology so your business isn’t susceptible to work stoppages due to tech issues. And you can predict this four to five years out into the future. Cybersecurity: This is about mitigating risk, and the risks are huge — particularly as more employees than ever before are working remotely. And all it takes is for a staff member to click on the wrong link and hundreds of thousands of dollars can end up in the hands of the wrong people (we’ve seen this happen more than once). And if you aren’t proactively looking at your company’s security setup, it’s not a question of if, but when, your business will get hacked. Productivity: What if you could save four hours per week, per employee? It’s possible. But without a proactive productivity roadmap that gives businesses specific initiatives to work on quarter after quarter, a lot of businesses have more employees than they need. There is likely duplication, or manual process, or too much paper. Essentially, technology is not being used effectively. Businesses are paying more for technology, but getting less. This is how you go from reactive IT support to proactive Intelligent Technology. Contact us to learn more about how we can help, or to book an assessment.