Technology Should Solve Business Problems

There has never been more technology available to small businesses.

CRM systems, project management platforms, accounting software, email marketing tools, booking systems, cloud storage, automation platforms and now an ever growing range of AI products all promise to make businesses more efficient.

Many of them are genuinely useful. The problem is that it has also become remarkably easy for a small business to accumulate a collection of monthly subscriptions without ever stopping to ask whether they are actually making the business better.

A £15 or £30 monthly subscription rarely feels like a major business decision. Add enough of them together, however, and they can become a significant annual cost, particularly when several systems overlap or are barely being used.

The answer isn’t to avoid technology. It is to start with the business problem rather than the software.

Start with the problem

When a new piece of technology looks interesting, the first question shouldn’t be “what can this do?”

It should be “what problem are we trying to solve?”

Perhaps customer enquiries are being missed because they arrive through several different channels. Maybe staff are spending hours transferring information between spreadsheets. Quotes aren’t being followed up consistently, documents are difficult to find, customers have to telephone to make appointments, or nobody really knows which marketing activity is generating business.

Those are business problems.

Once the problem is understood, you can start looking at whether technology can provide a sensible solution.

Sometimes the answer will be new software. Sometimes it will be making better use of something the business already pays for. Occasionally, the problem isn’t technological at all and the better answer is simply to change a process.

That distinction matters.

Look at what you already have

One of the first things I would look at before recommending another system is what the business already uses.

Microsoft 365 is a good example. Many businesses subscribe to it primarily for Outlook, Word and Excel without necessarily exploring the wider tools included within their plan. Depending on the subscription, businesses may already have access to tools for collaboration, document management, forms, task management, bookings and automation.

The same applies elsewhere. Accounting packages, website platforms and CRM systems increasingly include functionality that businesses sometimes purchase separately from another provider.

That doesn’t mean the bundled option is always the best choice. Specialist software can be considerably better at a particular job. But it makes sense to understand what you already have before adding another monthly cost.

A useful technology review should therefore start with an inventory:

• What systems are we paying for?

What does each one cost over a year?
Who actually uses them?
Which features are we using?
Are any of the systems doing essentially the same job?
Is information being manually copied from one system to another?

The answers can be surprisingly revealing.

The £20 subscription isn’t really £20

Subscription pricing also changes the way businesses think about technology costs.

A product costing £20 per month sounds inexpensive. It is £240 a year. Five similar subscriptions are £1,200 a year. Add additional users, premium features, storage or integrations and the cost can increase considerably.

That doesn’t make them poor investments. A £1,200 annual software cost that saves £5,000 worth of staff time or helps generate substantially more business could represent excellent value.

The important question is whether anybody is measuring that value.

Businesses routinely scrutinise larger purchases while subscriptions can quietly renew month after month. Individually they appear insignificant, which is precisely why they deserve occasional review as a group.

Automation is useful, but inefficient processes can be automated too

Automation is another area where starting with the problem matters.

There are now relatively accessible ways to connect systems, trigger emails, create tasks, move information and use AI to handle parts of administrative processes. Used well, this can remove repetitive work and free people to concentrate on activities where their time is more valuable.

But automating an inefficient process doesn’t necessarily make it a good process.

Before automating something, it is worth mapping what currently happens from beginning to end. Are all the steps necessary? Is the same information being collected twice? Is somebody approving something simply because that is how it has always been done?

Simplifying the process first can sometimes remove the need for technology altogether. Where automation is still useful, you are then automating a better process.

Don’t forget the people who have to use it

The technically best system isn’t necessarily the best system for a particular business.

Software only delivers value if people actually use it.

A sophisticated CRM with dozens of features achieves very little if employees continue keeping customer information in notebooks or their personal inboxes because the system is cumbersome. Equally, introducing several new platforms at once can create more confusion than improvement.

Implementation therefore matters as much as selection.

People need to understand why something is changing, how the new system helps them and what they are expected to do differently. They also need appropriate training and an opportunity to identify problems once they begin using it in the real world.

For a small business, a simpler system that people use consistently can be far more valuable than a powerful system that nobody likes.

AI makes this conversation even more important

The rapid growth of AI has made technology decisions particularly difficult for businesses.

New products appear constantly, while established software providers are adding AI functionality to products businesses already use. There is understandable pressure to experiment, and there are already plenty of areas where AI can save time or help people work more effectively.

But “we need to use AI” isn’t a business objective.

The same questions still apply. What are we trying to improve? How much time could this realistically save? What information will be processed? Does somebody still need to check the output? Is the capability already available within software we use?

Starting with those questions makes it much easier to separate useful applications from technology adopted simply because everybody is talking about it.

A simple test before adding another system

Before committing to another subscription, I think businesses should be able to answer four questions:

What specific problem does this solve?
Why can’t we solve it adequately with what we already have?
What will it cost in money and time to introduce and operate?
How will we know whether it has worked?

If those questions have clear answers, the technology has a reasonable business case.

If they don’t, another subscription probably isn’t the first thing the business needs.

Technology should make the business simpler

Good technology can make a small business considerably more capable. It can remove repetitive administration, improve customer service, provide better information and allow a relatively small team to operate far more effectively.

But digital improvement shouldn’t be measured by how many systems a business uses.

The objective is a business that works better.

Sometimes that means introducing new technology. Sometimes it means connecting systems that already exist, removing something that is no longer needed or helping people make better use of tools they already have.

The starting point should always be the same: understand the business problem first, then decide whether technology is the right way to solve it.