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How more Information Technology (IT) can enable your business

Small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) in particular often don’t have the time and resources to filter through the vast amount of IT choices to find what would be necessary and useful for them to enhance their business processes. Additionally, they are mostly not aware of their own IT potential. Eventually some don’t risk interrupting a working business – if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it!

Yet today’s digital age requires companies to deliver faster and faster. Intensifying market pressure stemming from higher competitiveness and customers’ increasing bargaining power brought on by the Internet (which makes instant price comparisons possible) forces companies to take action. Not being informed and sticking to old methods can be deadly, especially in tough economical times such as these.

Investing in IT needs careful consideration and knowledge. Numerous software systems can provide support to deflect critical pressure and at the same time address market demands. Furthermore, many outstanding systems are available under “open source licenses”, i.e. with zero acquisition cost and the usage is free of charge.

From six days to four hours: A case study how to save time and money
The following case study points out how to significantly improve business processes and save resources with the help of the right software:
Before using IT systems, each step of a customer ordering process in a company was performed manually and forwarded to the next processor by (interoffice) mail. The whole process starting from the customer inquiry, the customer evaluation over the stipulation of the contract terms to the proposal preparation and service delivery took about six days on average.
The disadvantages for the customer and the company are clear: The customer had to wait too long for the completion and was not aware of the status of his request due to the non-transparent process. This uncertainty can lead to the result that the customer backs out and looks for an offer from another company – a blown deal for the company.
With the introduction of a proper IT system and the consequent analysis and radical redesign of the complete process, time could be reduced from six days to four hours. Whereas the system assisted well through the process, only one employee as a generalist was needed for the handling of the entire task. Furthermore the amount of processed inquiries went up by the factor of 100 per month on average.

Important IT concepts you should know about
The following listed IT concepts (and their according software systems) can improve your business in different ways:

Definitions of important IT concepts

IT as an enabler also opens up new opportunities to establish completely new business processes and segments generating new income.
Of course each company has its individual needs of IT systems. Every company needs a detailed analysis and roadmap on how to introduce a new IT system most efficiently.
The next post will discuss the institutionalization of the IT into the corporate strategy along with methods on how choosing the most suitable or needed software system for your corporate.

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