New technologies can offer great opportunities for business growth, efficiency, and innovation. But they also come with risks, such as security breaches, compatibility issues, legal compliance, and user adoption. How do you weigh the pros and cons of adopting new tech solutions for your business? Here are some tips to help you make informed decisions.
Before you jump on the latest tech trend, ask yourself why you need it and what problem it solves. Define your goals, expectations, and requirements for the new technology. Consider how it aligns with your business strategy, vision, and values. Evaluate your current resources, capabilities, and gaps. Do a SWOT analysis (strengths, weaknesses, opportunities, and threats) to identify the potential benefits and drawbacks of the new technology.
Simply shifting a poor-performing process onto a new platform will not improve the process. Improving processes and outcomes should be a core part of planning before considering migration to new technologies.
It’s rarely the tech that is the problem…vendor management and measurement that are the problem. I pay careful attention to the financials AND the tech. Don’t fall in love with the tech, an RFI or RFP/purchase order gets you what you want.
Once you have a clear idea of what you need, do some market research to find out what options are available. Compare different vendors, features, prices, and reviews. Look for reliable sources of information, such as industry reports, peer recommendations, and customer testimonials. Check the credibility, reputation, and track record of the providers. Ask for demos, trials, or case studies to see how the technology works in practice.
Market landscaping and competitive analysis can be conducted within your team or with open innovation specialists. The aim is to comprehend what is already available in the market, the pros and cons of existing technologies, emerging technologies, regulatory frameworks, and potential roadblocks. This information can be gathered by reading reports, consulting subject matter or industry experts, etc. This comprehensive approach aids in weighing new tech risks effectively within the business.
Due diligence on the vendor is a supply-chain role in large enterprises. Lacking a supply-chain infrastructure SMB’s must go to pains to cross every “T” and dot every “I”. Leave no stone unturned.
After you narrow down your choices, do a cost-benefit analysis to estimate the return on investment (ROI) of the new technology. Calculate the total cost of ownership (TCO), which includes not only the initial purchase price, but also the ongoing maintenance, support, training, and upgrade expenses. Estimate the potential revenue, savings, or value that the technology can generate or enhance. Consider both the short-term and long-term impacts on your business performance, productivity, and profitability.
I recommend getting out into the vendor “fashion shows” at other venues to find out how their employees speak about their company. A hot company has proud and eager people..not play-actors. Cost-vs-benefits analysis should leap out at you during your reasearch phase.
No technology is risk-free, so it is important to identify and mitigate the potential risks associated with the new technology. Security is a major risk to consider, such as how vulnerable it is to cyberattacks, data breaches, or unauthorized access and what measures are in place to protect data and systems. Additionally, you should evaluate compatibility, compliance, and adoption. How well does the technology integrate with existing infrastructure, processes, and workflows? Does it comply with relevant laws, regulations, standards, and ethics? How easy or difficult is it for users to learn and use the technology? Answering these questions can help you assess the risks and determine what kind of training, support, or incentives are needed.
As someone providing technologies to our customers, Its always critical that our customers understand the limitations of technologies. Certain tech can only be beneficial for certain use-cases, and if not used correctly could even lead to risks. Specially when onboarding a new customer its important that we convey the risks and ask our customers to own those risks.
Risks can be mitigated so long as the risks are fully known. Inevitably exceptions pop-up. Own the risks - take charge and eliminate them. This can be accomplished via negotiations, and “teeth in the purchase order errata. Regulatory and statutory constraints should be known before this point.
In my experience, a very effective way to mitigate new tech risk is isolating it first, I mean, build a "Capsule" (this can be a product, a department, or an obsolete solution to a problem where this new technology can be applied) and use this new tech to solve the problem inside that capsule, then invite external actors to the capsule, gradually... you can start with POCs and then, MVPs but still the concept of isolation is the very valuable key to understand and analyze risk exposure and then risk mitigation.
Finally, after you implement the new technology, you need to monitor and evaluate its performance and outcomes. Set up key performance indicators (KPIs) and metrics to measure the effectiveness, efficiency, and satisfaction of the technology. Collect and analyze data and feedback from various sources, such as surveys, analytics, reports, or reviews. Identify what works well and what needs improvement. Adjust your strategy, processes, or expectations accordingly. Keep up with the changes and trends in the market and technology landscape.
Insure you negotiate vendor baby-sits their product until you are satisfied; anything less is setting your own team up for failure. If you know the risks, push them back onto the vendor. Do not let vendors dictate your strategy - especially big-vendors, they’ll bankrupt an SMB if they want to. This gets back to vendor and acquisition management.
There are no silver bullets in technology. New technology needs to be evaluated and factored into existing processes and procedures so they can be effectively implemented. Also, as we know, there will always be an app for that. The proliferation of SaaS apps in use across companies is exploding. This introduces challenges. Is that data protected? Is it available in the event of individual deletion or cyberthreat? It’s important to know what your threat landscape is, what data is protected and unprotected and what you have in place to ensure the technology you are using and the data you are creating is available and easily ready for recovery in the event of any outage. Don't wait until you check your Terms of Service to realize that.
Everyone wants the new tech to be validated by market first before they try, but if everyone thought exactly like that no one in Market would validate the tech. Some organizations have to become the lead adopters of the tech, and the rest of the market will follow. Be the lead adopter, benefits of adopting early outweigh the risks of failure, specially if you manage risks properly with PoCs and Portotyping.
In my view, it comes down to how easily the action can be reversed. Tools that require big integration with your existing workflow and data sources are the ones where we should go through extensive due diligence before making the decision. For tools that are easy to set up, try, use, and cancel. We should move quickly to try it out instead of overspending time on research and comparison.