Bottom Line
By Michael Gunther

In life, nothing stays the same. If you attempt not to change yourself or your business, life will continue evolving and you will soon find yourself behind.

You can see this play out in business every day. The employee whom was once a top performer, but did not grow or develop their skills, soon finds that they are no longer the cream of the crop. Or the business that isn’t constantly finding more innovative ways to create or deliver its products and services soon discovers declining revenue and a changing marketplace.

Change is going to happen and as business leaders, you must embrace change as a core strategy. Just recently, Google adjusted its search engine algorithm to favor mobile-friendly sites by analyzing a website’s mobile compatibility.

If your website failed the assessment, you lost your Google search results placement, falling farther down the display list. Many companies were aware of this change and took proactive action, where just as many other companies discovered this after the fact and were left playing catch up.

I would even venture to say that some companies probably still haven’t realized this change has taken place and will continue to see their web traffic decline.

One area I believe gets overlooked with many small businesses is in technology strategy and innovation. Most organizations treat technology as a project, saying, “We need a new website” or “We need to upgrade our software.”

In reality, technology should be a strategic topic, much like sales or marketing would be within an organization. Technology can streamline operations, offer new ways to manage and communicate to customers, provide efficiencies so that you can grow without adding additional human resources, and more.

Someone on your team needs to be in charge of not just technology project implementation, but technology strategy.

Can you imagine having a team member providing new, innovative approaches to reaching new customers, maintaining client relationships or improving operations?

One of their key performance metrics could be how have they streamlined the business and improved productivity through the use of technology. What are they doing to challenge the status quo?

They could be researching trends unfolding within your industry, investigating strategies that larger firms are deploying, and truly becoming your competitive advantage by making your firm cutting edge.

[pullquote align=”full” cite=”Michael Gunther” link=”” color=”#FF9966″ class=”” size=””]I think many leaders are not investing enough in the technology area of their business and have become stagnate or reactionary.[/pullquote]

I think many leaders are not investing enough in the technology area of their business and have become stagnate or reactionary.

Unfortunately, if you are not investing and strategizing every month and every year on how to benefit from technology and software advances, you will soon become less relevant in your marketplace and may find it harder to compete.

Bottom Line
What is your technology strategy? Do you have separate objectives for technology and innovation in your plan, as you would for sales or profit? If you don’t, you should think about adjusting your perspective and make technology a key strategic aspect of your business’ operation and growth.

This is another article in a series on Michael Gunther’s entrepreneurial story and how being raised in a large family and his belief in creating a growth company with a work-to-live mentality has influenced his career. To read the previous articles in this series, visit his blog at: www.Collaboration-llc.com.

Michael Gunther is Founder and President of Collaboration LLC, a team of highly skilled business professionals who are dedicated to assisting proactive business owners to build profitable, sustainable businesses through results-oriented education and consulting services. Learn more at: www.Collaboration-llc.com. Bottom Line is a regular feature of Tolosa Press.