Think strategically about IT, focusing on where you want to be in 6 months or a year, rather than where you are now, so that your IT capabilities will be able to work in tandem with your business strategy without lagging behind. It’s also vitally important to include training and support in your overall IT plan.  If your employees aren’t equipped to fully utilize the software and equipment—efficiency will be significantly diminished and you won’t get full value for your IT investment.

If you give low priority to IT planning, you will often find yourself in a reactive mode, forced to make quick decisions to replace technology that’s outdated or has suddenly failed.  This puts you always behind the curve, buying impulsively – a mistake that can saddle your business with mismatched products that are hard to administer and make subsequent training more difficult.  By thinking strategically in your IT planning and by understanding and anticipating your business needs, you can acquire and integrate leading technologies in a systematic fashion.

Choose your IT vendors carefully.  Establish partnerships of trust with your preferred software development outsourcing firm, hardware suppliers, commercial-off-the-shelf software vendors, and support people.  Avoid the common pitfall of keeping your needs close to the vest.  You need to be clear and open about your current situation, your goals, and priorities. Find a company that is dedicated to understanding your particular business needs and to working within your parameters to develop custom designed software and hardware solutions that deliver good value and low risk. This strategic investment in information technology helps create consistency and standardization and increases efficiency, which in turn reduces labor costs and helps your business grow.