Get tech before you get big

Most business owners and companies like to wait to make technology investments until they absolutely have to. With many investments in your business this type of approach will work, but with technology this is not the case, your technology must grow with your business.

If you wait until you are having productivity losses to make decisions about your technology you will have further productivity losses that will be more costly to resolve. For example instead of upgrading workstations on a regular schedule you run them into the ground you will inevitably have system and hard drive failures that will result in more downtime for employees than they would have had if you had upgraded the computer proactively. This is not to mention that potentially critical data could have gone up in smoke with the dead system.

Another good example of proactive tech spending is on a phone system. By purchasing a phone system when you have a handfull of employees versus when you have  many employees will allow you to spread the typically high cost of the phone system across the time it takes you to grow your business. There is one caveat here though, ensure the systems that you are putting can scale up to your projected growth, if you intend to have the systems around at that time. Otherwise you are not spending wisely.

Finally, by spending as you grow you will not be forced to make huge tech investments all at one time.