Rare Earth Digital’s Top Tips on Embracing Technology Tips #6 – 10

Oct 2020

We were lucky enough to be asked to speak at South Cheshire Chamber’s virtual education seminar Here’s some more practical tips 6-10 on ways to embrace technology

Peter Bennett’s – Top Tips #6 – 10

Tip #6: Understand technical debt, and plan your long-term systems growth

Putting up with shaky processes for managing your data can get you through the early stages of building a company, but wait too long before improving them and it will become harder and harder to control your increasingly unstable systems. We have had new clients who decided they needed to build more robust systems only because their existing ones fell over in a heap costing them tens of thousands of pounds. If you plan to grow your business, but you haven’t planned to grow your information systems, then it’s practically inevitable that they will collapse one day.

Tip #7: Manage the serious hidden risks technology brings into your business

Your information systems may appear to work properly, and you will probably notice if they slow down or fall over. However, it’s not just about efficiency. It’s also about security, how maintainable they are, how scalable, how risky, and how legal. If you are a company director be aware of your personal legal responsibility for knowing where your information is going, how it’s being processed, and how secure it is.

Tip #7: Manage the serious hidden risks technology brings into your business

We do build apps for business automation purposes (warehousing, customer feedback etc.), but 99% of the time a mobile-optimised website will do fine, and cost a significant amount less. As with all investments, be clear about why exactly you would need it, how would you ensure people use it, what value it adds etc.

Tip #9: You probably don’t need custom software

Although we build custom software, we ask any prospective clients to be sure that they have looked at anything available off-the-shelf first, and to be sure that it isn’t better for them to change their processes to suit what’s available to buy or licence. Only if a client can make a strong argument that their way of doing things is critical to their competitive advantage in the market would we recommend they go ahead. If you’ve already got custom software, you’ll probably know about it.

Tip #10: Get professional advice

It’s a great idea to ask your business contacts and friends what they use and how they run their businesses, but we’d also recommend getting professional advice. There are a number of business consultants and advisers around who can help, so don’t jump in and sign up to long-term contracts of big investments without thinking it through.

We’d welcome the opportunity to speak to you about what information you use to manage your business and if streamlining technology can help. Contact us for a chat.