Any good business owner will tell you that if you want to be more than just an employee in your own business then you need to grow it to the point that you have resources working for you, leaving you to step out of the day-to-day activities and focus on strategy and further growth.
Arguably, the most valuable resource your business has is its employees. However, your next most valuable resource is usually, at least when it comes to ROI, your business' technology.
Technology costs trend down with time, while at the same time incrementally generating more money for your business.
Many businesses are still benefiting from technology implemented decades ago. Banks, for example, in many cases still benefit partially from back-end software written in the 1960s and 1970s. Small business internet sites have been around since the 1990s, generating huge amounts of money with relatively small, incremental updates every few years to keep them relevant to current trends and capabilities.
Please note that this is not intended as an argument for replacing people with technology. People will always be the heart of your business. Effective technology complements your team's strengths to maximise your business productivity and service levels, and minimise costs, especially related to repeatable business processes.
And here's why. Technology such as your website, business applications, and automated business processes:
- Never stop working, 24hours a day, 365 days a year.
- Hardly ever ask for increases. Technology-related costs almost always trend downwards over time.
- Increases its rate of return on investment over time (maintenance costs less than the initial setup costs).
- Only marginally increases your running costs.
- Costs are fixed and predictable, even in high inflation periods and times of skills shortages.
- Complements multiple roles (sales, marketing, support, customer service, etc).
- Is reliable (no sickies, bad days, hangovers, family issues, intra-office issues, etc).
If done right, business technology is highly profitable to your business compared to its cost to implement.
Technology is a non-stop work horse for your business. If a business process can be repeated, chances are that it can be programmed to work for you and make you money, over and over, tirelessly.
At the end of the day, it's just simple maths that spending money on your business website, software and automated processes, are some of the most profitable resources your business can invest in.
