Small Business Blog from Atlantic Canada

I am "CA" Atreya (PMP, MBA), the author of this blog. I help businesses in Atlantic Canada achieve their BHAG successfully. You may subscribe to this blog using a feed reader (RSS).

Note: For the first article in this series please go to Issues in Strategy Implementation. 

Innovative and technologically advanced support systems can be a basis for competitive advantage. This is assuming your competition cannot match the quality of your information systems. In today’s business environment, it is impossible to even think of successfully implementing strategies without good support systems. Organizations like FedEx and Walmart pioneered the use of technology to improve customer services and drive down costs. In today’s knowledge economy, firms that are able to mobilize data, convert them into information and gather insights are successful.

Accurate information is an essential ingredient in decision making. You need a system to gather and store data, track performance and gather insights using the data. Access to accurate and real time information allows your employees to make the right decisions when dealing with customers. All organizations, from small businesses to large businesses, provide their customer-facing employees access to relevant information with a view the improve customer satisfaction. Your management team needs measurement and feedback systems to monitor performance of such employees.

Typically, you would need information system for 1. customer management; 2. financial management; 3. operations; 4. vendor collaboration and 5. employee management. With todays technology, you can monitor performance in each of the above areas real time. This allows your managers to detect problems early before it can cause any major damage and take corrective actions. Intelligent systems can also alert you of deviations from the norm – especially on the manufacturing floor.

Knowing what information you require is the key to identifying and implementing a good information system. You can have systems that capture even the minute data, but if that data cannot be mined for information, it is pretty much useless. To have the information your employees need to make the right decision, you will need considerable investment in technology. That is not all. Costs can quickly escalate when you take maintenance and upgrades into consideration. Small businesses cannot typically afford this. Total cost of ownership of information system across all the functional areas of the business is going to be prohibitive. Outsourcing is an option.

Just imagine the costs of maintaing a website – you would need to purchase a server, operating system, web server, mail server, dedicated high speed Internet connection, web authoring software, database and SQL, and software licenses. (Did I miss anything?) It can quickly escalate into thousands of dollars. Only large organizations would have been able to afford this. But a small business can outsource most of the above – and still save a lot of money as the hosting company’s costs are shared amongst its various clients.

As any organization that has tried to implement a CRM system can attest – it is a pain. You can now outsource your CRM to providers like Salesforce.com. FreshBooks.com is another vendor you can use for time tracking, invoicing and billing your clients. If your hosting company does not provide you with analytics, you can use solutions like Google analytics, eWebCounter.com. Both are free solutions too. Insurance claims adjusters now do not have to depend on their desktop software – they can use mobile technology with a browser and Internet to adjust claims quickly.

Information is the key to employee empowerment and that in turn is a motivating factor for them to meet their performance goals. Having an information systems are now a standard; it is a given. If you are not using the right information system to manage your data, your strategy will take longer to implement. In fact, the success of your strategy depends on your organization having the right information system.

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