Ever wanted to create your own business but got stuck at the technology part? Don’t worry–we know how daunting it can be. There are lots of different things to consider when putting together a business–so much so that it can be easy to forget different aspects of business. Technology is something that you either have a lot of experience with, or you’d rather hand it off to someone else.
Either way, having a solid plan in regards to IT is a good way to increase your chances of a successful business. So here are the questions you should be asking yourself.
What are my business goals and objectives?
Everything starts here–your business goals and objectives. Not everyone has a clear picture of what their business should be like. Some people want to start a small company, others want to grow into large corporations, and some just want to share their passion with the world. Your goals will be important in answering the next couple of questions, so try to establish them early on.
Don’t worry if you think you might change them later on–that’s completely normal and understandable. However, if you don’t start with some goals and objectives, you’ll have a lot of trouble later on.
Am I willing to work with outsourced services?
There are two main ways to establish a strong IT foundation; either you do it yourself, or you hire someone to do it for you. Doing it yourself means you either have that knowledge or you’ve already recruited someone that can help you. The other option is to get in touch with a service like CMIT Solutions to help you out. Outsourcing it can be a great option as it means you can give them your ideas and they’ll spin them into functional IT strategy.
However, if you prefer to have more control over your technology, then you might want to do everything yourself or hire a full-time employee to manage your technological needs.
What role should IT play in my business?
Is IT going to take center stage, or is it just there to support your business?
Take a home-based business as an example. If your business involves selling homemade fashion, then you probably aren’t going to use IT much for anything outside of administrative tasks and selling your products.
However, if you’re making a video game, then technology is probably at the heart of everything. In this case, you need to have a much stronger grasp of what your IT strategy is because it’s involved with almost everything you do.
Ask yourself what kind of infrastructure you’ll need, cloud services that you’ll be relying on, and don’t forget to budget for this either as it can get very expensive very quickly. If you don’t plan to use much technology in your business, then it will likely play a much smaller (yet no less important) role. This means less to learn, less to manage, and less to think about in the long-run.