Top tips for Businesses this 2023

The pace of business innovation has substantially risen.?Legacy IT slows businesses down. Complex expensive legacy infrastructure does not work in today’s digital-first world. As a result, building and deploying technology must happen in days or weeks rather than months. The speed and simplicity of IT deployments are now considered revolutionary. So, what are my top tips for businesses going into 2023?

1.?Focus on what makes profit to the exclusion of all else.?Businesses need to make money to survive in the short term and thrive in the long term.?

"There is major rethinking taking place for 2023, where many firms are simply struggling to navigate this current maze of complexity and cost.??The Autonomous Enterprise vision is where the survivors are looking, but getting there requires fewer people, politics, resistance to change, and great partnerships"

– HFS, 2023 is the year of ‘The Autonomous Enterprise’ as economics trigger change

2.?Focus on operational efficiency?– remove unused robot software licenses, duplicate software, duplicate roles, or duplicate environments.?Remove redundant bot code that no longer adds business value.?

3.?Go back to your software providers and ask for a discount to help your business survive in the long term.?The right business partner wants to keep you in business and will be open to this conversation.

4.?Remove IT activities that add no real value e.g., if the project has not worked in 24 months it won’t work now.?Apply the Pareto rule to all your IT projects and ditch the 80% of IT projects or tasks that add no business value and focus on the 20% that do.?Adjust your cost base to that new 20% level.??

5.?Identify your best IT projects.?Pay very close attention to them, remove blockages, and provide proper funding and executive time and attention in order for them to succeed.

6.?Be open with people?– show them the cost of IT so they treat the IT investment as their own / they will reward you by spending your money like it is their own.?Many companies and IT teams shy away from doing this, but IT staff react well when they understand IT costs.

7.?Apply automation technologies strategically?and spend as much time investing in your people to give them the digital skills they need not to leave them behind.?

8.?Invest in automation and industry 4.0 tech?to help your company compete and gain a competitive advantage. Don’t forget to teach your people how to use this technology. Your business strategy, IT strategy, and people strategy need to constantly align.

9.?Digitize and automate.?And if you don’t know how – hire an outcome-based vendor who only gets paid when they deliver for you.

10.?Don’t go backward when times improve?-?stay lean, not mean. Furthermore, continue to ruthlessly prioritize and complete winning IT programs – kill off the weak projects fast.?

Economic turmoil forces businesses to take action.?However, the most successful businesses don’t wait until they are on fire to take rapid action to reduce operational costs and drive new business value from their technology investments.??In 2023 businesses will face many headwinds including wage inflation, recession, and economic turmoil.??Automation and digitization are answers to many of those challenges.?However, to succeed over the long term set out a winning digital strategy that goes beyond 2023 so that your digital workforce is ready and able to help your business thrive over the longer term.