Upsize Primer: Objectives first

Objectives first

A step-by-step plan eases major technology upgrades

by Andrew Tellijohn  

CONCORD TECHNOLOGY sells technology for large professional services companies that make various aspects of their businesses faster and more efficient.

The firm specializes in recruiting senior-level IT professionals who can help clients with individual projects or upgrades of their operating systems.

So forgive CEO Chris Davis if he is a bit sheepish. The three-year-old Edina company has spent plenty of time and money servicing its own clients. But as a startup, the firm underestimated its own needs and now is in the middle of doing a customer relationship management (CRM) software implementation.

The move will put everything from billing to payroll onto a system that will be accessible to all employees that need the access rather than keeping the data on individual machines, often forcing employees to recreate the wheel when they make deals.

At times, Davis says, the company will be working on a project for a client but much of the information will be on one person’s computer. “That doesn’t help us,” he says. “We need a companywide system.”

The time and money savings won’t be known for a few months. But the system should be up and running by about late April. By eliminating duplicative efforts, Concord’s employees will be more efficient and able to focus on selling and earning for the firm, he says.

“We found the lack of information that we had in one place was costing us too much time and energy. It’s worth it for us to have something built,” Davis says.

While he knows the change is necessary, he also acknowledges it would have been better to be on top of this from the start because the upgrade is forcing the company to “take its eye off the ball” for a while in order to make sure the implementation goes well.

“We’re a fairly young company,” he says. “We probably should have started this process the day we started. It becomes pretty painful. It’s hard to change. It’s really hard to create that time, the time to be nonproductive.”

Do your research
Given Concord’s background in technology, the company had more knowledge and savvy than many in tracking down a partner, Bloomington-based Inetium, to perform the install of its Microsoft CRM software.

But tech savvy or not, the process for making sure a CRM upgrade, or any other technological advancement for that matter, works well for your company can be simplified substantially with a little upfront research, says Stephan Svensson, director of marketing for Inetium.

“What they need to do is put the onus on themselves first,” he says. “They need to understand what their objectives are.”

In the case of a CRM install, that means first determining what the company is trying to accomplish and then taking some time to learn about the various options on the market.

Second, Svensson says, companies should identify and interview several potential partners that have the product they are seeking to make sure their goals and the vendors’ capabilities are in line.

“They are going to have to work with them and trust them,” he says.

Finally, the buyer needs to make sure the product they purchase aligns with the firm’s other existing technology to ease integration. For many, Microsoft CRM makes sense because it works with other Microsoft products. Others might need to go another direction.

“A lot of times people make the mistake of just buying software and then figuring out, ‘Well, this will probably do what I want,’ ” Svensson says, which often leads to a product that is “not as successful then as it could be or not successful at all.”

How to take stock
When Minneapolis-based Pragmatek Consulting Group is hired to help a client improve its processes the company will spend six to 12 weeks performing a detailed “process segmentation” analysis.

The analysis is designed to force the company to focus on its core strategic value-added offerings.

That’s important because a company’s technological needs should be in alignment with what they are selling to the marketplace, says Tim Allen, vice president of management consulting.

“You have to do a little more homework with respect to understanding the processes within your business,” he says.

Allen addressed a roomful of attendees at a February conference hosted by The Collaborative in Minneapolis.

He describes one scenario, in which software functionality drives technology installations as a “push” implementation. Such a strategy is fine, he says, when the technology in question isn’t a value-added or if it doesn’t need to set itself apart with that portion of its capabilities.

But for a firm’s specific core competencies that set it apart from competitors, he suggests a “pull” implementation, which he called tailoring the technology to the processes that drive the business.

The more important the function is to the business, the more vital it is to build technology enhancements around it, he says.

Allen instructed entrepreneurs to make sure they really need an upgrade. If they are buying product solely to keep up with all the latest toys they might want to think twice, he says.

However, if the business is operating with a high number of process-related disconnects, has moved into new channels of doing business or has had to go off its existing system to “spreadsheet proliferation,” then a software upgrade is likely the answer.

“A lot of times that old software won’t meet the new challenges,” he says.

Further homework, Allen suggests, for ensuring that technology upgrades fulfill their aim: looking at what others in the industry are doing and how their strategies are working for them and, once companies have mapped out their processes, finding a sampling of vendors that are willing to demonstrate they can design technology that fits.

He also suggests comprehensive training to ensure employees know how to use the technology. Companies that follow these tips, he says, can increase the functionality of their software from about 30 percent of capacity to almost 70 percent.

Where’s the pain?
Joe Benedict has sold hardware, software, business intelligence products, operating systems and other technologies during his time in the industry. He now sells customer relationship management products for Axonom Inc. of Minneapolis.

For business owners, a lot of the same strategies apply no matter what the technology. He agrees that many small-business owners could do a better job of preparing for a major techie purchase and of focusing on what their business is all about.

“I’ve worked with small companies before,” he says. “Some of them don’t do things right.”

He agrees with others who say business owners should interview companies that specialize in the technologies they are seeking. He adds that many such firms also have niches in specific industries. Working with such a firm could benefit the non-techie executive, he says.

Another thing to remember, Benedict says, is to make sure a major purchase is necessary and not just a desire. With all the fancy inventions out there, many people get caught up in wanting things they don’t need. “Know what you want and why you want it and make sure you understand where your ROI is going to come,” he says.

Business owners don’t need to be tech savvy in order to purchase smart, but they do need to realize technology is just a means to an end.

“It is pretty basic,” Benedict adds. “Technology allows you to automate. Technology is just technology. You need to understand what you do as a business and specifically what you are trying to do. You are trying to focus on solving a pain.”

One oft-forgotten key to succeeding with a technology upgrade is seeking feedback and buy-in from department leaders and others within your company, says Keith Schoolcraft, president of A Couple of Gurus in Golden Valley.

Many technology upgrades fall apart because business owners either didn’t get other employees on board with the changes or didn’t seek feedback to see how the new equipment would interact with systems that are already in place in other areas.

“They need to engage the buy-in of the personnel of their company, especially if they are changing a major way they are going to work,” Schoolcraft says. “You need to at least get on board a few of your key people within your company to help roll this out to everyone.

“Sometimes your biggest failure is not the rollout itself, but the backlash from the people who work for you. You can help that by making them part of the process.”

One success story
So buying the right technology isn’t necessarily easy. But when the proper steps are taken to find the right mix it can really have benefits, as evidenced by the success of Brooklyn Center-based Outdoor Click.

In 1999 the company launched a fishing video site, FishFever.com. While primitive, it offered online video for the outdoors crowd — sort of the YouTube of the outdoor industry, says Sean Perillo, co-owner of Outdoor Click and the “doing business as” offshoots that have followed.

The company has grown to a staff of seven, most of whom work off-site. He can log in at any time and see what they are doing.

“We’re high-tech,” he says. “It’s all done via the Internet.”

The big score came when Perillo was trying to figure out how to accommodate the growing number of people who visited FishFever.com that then began asking how they could get their videos in front of mass audiences.

Perillo, who is helped by his own tech savvy, did some research on who provided equipment that would allow his firm to take VHS tapes and convert them to digital files and then CD-ROM.

After researching it online and inviting a couple companies in to demonstrate their wares, Outdoor Click found Rimage. The Edina-based maker of CD and DVD publishing systems’ products was approximately 20 times more expensive than some of the other technologies that Perillo had sampled.

But the quality was better, it can hold 300 disks, it’s more robotic and reliable, and in more than three years, the only maintenance needed was a replacement DVD drive, he says.

These days, business is good. While Perillo laments not being quite quick enough to beat YouTube to the mass Web video market, he’s still excited about the business the company does and the equipment it uses.

“We’ve probably put over a half a million disks through it and it’s still running,” he says.

[contact] Tim Allen, Pragmatek Consulting Group Ltd.: 612.333.3164; ti*******@*******ek.com; www.pragmatek.com. Joe Benedict, Axonom Inc.: 952.653.0355; jb*******@****om.com; www.axonom.com. Dan Carr, The Collaborative: 612.338.3828; in**@***********ve.net; www.collaborative.net. Chris Davis, Concord Technology: 952.697.5500; ch*********@****************gy.com; www.concord-technology.com. Sean Perillo, Dupe Shop: 763.315.4939; in**@******op.com; www.dupeshop.com. Keith Schoolcraft, A Couple of Gurus: 763.537.4504; ke***@************us.com; www.acoupleofgurus.com. Stephan Svensson, Inetium: 952.646.0785; ss*******@*****um.com; www.inetium.com.