How to gain a competitive edge through a smart IT budget

In this year's Your Business Magazine, our latest feature reveals what you should be spending your IT budget on in 2022, with 5 key elements to help you reach your business goals. 

You can read the article below or the original here.

Technology is taking over. It operates our systems and machines, it’s how we communicate, market, sell, manage, and make decisions – nearly every part of modern business is touched by technology, but how much time and money are you spending on it? In most cases the answer is not enough or not in a smart way. It is time to address this and make IT work for your business.

Why is IT a good place to start if you want to stay competitive? Technology can do the heavy lifting, prevent human error, enable scale and it can make our staff more effective, efficient, and happier. It can make you stand out from the crowd with your customer.

With that in mind, it’s important for any businesses to prioritise their IT budget. Paying IT some attention will facilitate collaboration in remote, office, or hybrid environments, reduce risk, enable better decision making through data and improve both your staff and client experiences.

What should you spend your IT budget on in 2023?

IT encompasses a variety of areas and touches all parts of your business. When considering your IT budget and strategy, it is best to divide IT into the following five elements. Once you've secured the foundations at phase one, you will be in a better position to explore the following stages depending on your business goals. 

Secure the foundations

The first step is to go back to the basics. Technology is evolving at lightning speed, so do you currently have the right solutions to empower your business processes? Are your solutions outdated? You need to ensure your IT is not just working for your team but also secure. A cloud-first model is needed in the modern workplace, plus an all-encompassing software like Office 365, quality laptops for all your staff, and the security basics to safeguard your business are must-haves for most operations. An IT partner can help you get the most out of your IT budget, ensure you have the right solutions (and only the right solutions), and can keep you updated and protected. Having this solid core will pave the way for the rest of the framework.

Collaborative tools

In hybrid and remote work settings, there are few things more important than having the right collaborative tools. Teams, telephony, and a business management tool can all make a big difference in ensuring seamless collaboration both internally and with customers. If your business system is not up to scratch or you are using out-of-date solutions, your productivity and profitability will suffer. Make sure to account for collaborative tools in your IT budget.

Integration tools

Speaking of tools, integration tools are crucial in your IT budget, especially if you’re working with a lot of different solutions. With all the software your business uses, having a seamless system integration and application optimisation will not just improve and streamline your processes but also ensure no tasks are repeated.  

Data analytics

With everything else you’ve got going on, it can be easy to lose sight of the big picture. Implementing automatic analysis of datasets and live dashboards can help you massively in keeping a holistic overview. Understanding your business and customer data will allow you to have a better understanding of your processes, see what goes well and what goes wrong, and enable solid decision making. This does not have to complicated, you just need the right tech partner to help you achieve it.

Automation opportunities

Automation is no longer a futuristic concept in Sci-Fi movies, in fact, most businesses are already taking advantage of it. If your IT budget doesn’t factor in automation yet, it should. Automating manual tasks using robotics, intelligent automation, machine learning and facilitating customer interactions allows for increased productivity, higher margins, ability to scale and errors removed.

Make your IT budget go further with T-Tech

Are you ready to make the most out of your IT budget and work your way up the maturity ladder? The right strategy will keep you operational, competitive, secure, and the return on investment is always apparent, if it’s done right.

You don’t have to determine your IT budget alone. At T-Tech, we’re award-winning IT specialists, providing managed services to accountancy firms, professional services, and any business who wants to realise the value of technology. Get the experts in to help and build a strategy that maximises your ROI. Talk to us today.