It has become part of modern business credo that to build a great company you have to use the right tech. The recent turbulent economy has done nothing to dispel that. HSBC’s latest report, Capex: The Game Changer, is clear: businesses still feel good about spending on tech. In fact, 59 percent feel technological change will positively impact them over the next year, with 61 percent planning to leverage tech to improve customer experiences.
“Forward-looking businesses aren’t afraid of adopting new technologies,” notes HSBC UK’s Head of Strategic Growth, Partnership & Innovation, Will Turner. “From our data, we can see that high growth-oriented companies see tech as a key tool to enable their growth.”
But with so much software available, how should you separate the signal from the noise? And what’s the smartest way to think about how your business approaches its tech?
Here, three experienced leaders each offer their two highest-value tips…
Carmen Carey, CEO of Sorted
Manchester-headquartered delivery experience platform Sorted was founded by David Grimes in 2010, and currently employs over 60 people in the UK. It specialises in carrier management, post-purchase experience, and returns. In 2021, Carmen Carey took over as CEO. Here’s what she has learned…
Avoid technologies in search of problems
In the face of persuasive marketing and industry hype, it can be tempting to adopt the new hot thing without a clear business case. Today, many tools are cloud-based, ‘as-a-service’ products, which means the barriers to doing this are especially low.
If the cost is minimal, this might sometimes be a worthwhile experiment, but as a general rule, only adopt tools that serve a clear purpose. They must solve a real problem and deliver clear, measurable advantages. Sorted has a range of tools that it uses internally to manage projects, collaborate, and be productive. The company has found there’s one further criterion to stay mindful of while assembling that toolkit: Choosing apps that can talk to each other. For example, integrated notifications that run across a suite of products used to manage software development life-cycles have helped to free up employee time. “If a tool can alert engineering about something and also inform the wider organisation, that just saves steps, right?” says Carey. “Then everyone’s able to focus on the outcome they need to deliver.”
Plan for then as well as now
Startups thrive on being nimble. Your tech needs to be the same. Not only should you avoid locking yourself into lengthy contracts—unless you’re completely confident that’s the right decision—but think about designing systems that can adapt to your needs. If a tool is cloud-based, paid for by subscription, and you can add or subtract users as required, that is a vastly more flexible alternative to on-premises software with rigid licensing agreements.
Carey recommends running a thought experiment: “Think—what’s our three- to five-year plan?” she says. “And what technologies will we need as we scale into that plan? And can I pick something now that will scale with us into the future? So make sure you’re in the moment, but also have that future lens on.”
Federico Charosky, Founder and CEO, Quorum Cyber
Federico Charosky is the founder and CEO of Quorum Cyber, which offers cybersecurity expertise to organisations across a wide variety of sectors. Charosky founded the business in Edinburgh in 2016, keen to address what he saw as an opaqueness that ran through the cybersecurity world. Quorum Cyber now helps defend more than 150 clients worldwide. Here’s his advice…
Choose best-in-suite over best-in-breed
There’s a perennial debate in software procurement: should you opt for “best-in-suite” (a collection of tools serving multiple business functions) or “best-in-breed” (individual products serving specific niches)?
When it comes to cybersecurity, argues Charosky, the answer is clear. While there’s a tendency to pick a best-in-breed technology and then figure out how to integrate it into the rest of the ecosystem, this tactic can be inefficient and, worse still, ineffective. And he has put his money where his mouth is, opting for a suite ecosystem to protect Quorum Cyber itself. “We made a very early bet [on a major provider’s new security suite],” he says, “and thankfully, it has paid off.”
