Dan MoyleTechnology. It moves at the speed of light. And it can cost you dearly, in both budget and employee hours.
How many businesses have so much technology, that they don’t know what they even have?
How often do you ask at your company, “When did we get that tool? And how does it work with what we have?”
This is especially true in the marketing, sales and service side of our business.
The MarTech landscape alone is so vast it can’t be contained in one infographic anymore. It’s a supergraphic. Add to that the Sales Technology solutions and you’re buried.
This doesn’t even take into account customer service ticketing software, HR technology, productivity tools or other tech stack needs your business faces today.
Add into the mix a marketing plan for growth in 2020, and you’re probably ready to throw in the towel.
So as you’re planning for growth next year and looking at your 2020 marketing, let’s look at a few other reasons why your strategy needs to include a review of your tech stack.
Why Your 2020 Marketing Plan Needs to Include a Tech Stack Review 🔍
One: Disconnected Technology Costs You Money 💲
Disconnected technology doesn’t just slow you down. It costs you money. A few years ago, a survey from Samanage suggested that US businesses were losing $1.8 trillion because of bad software.
Two of the biggest costs in a business are technology and human resources. If you’re not reviewing your tech stack, you’re likely not sure how much it’s costing you.
According to one article in Forbes, disconnected and outdated technology can drain a budget fast. What are some of the downsides to an inefficient tech stack?
- Your team spends more time navigating administrative tasks than they do actually engaging with customers and each other in value-added ways.
- Technology evolution moves at such a rapid pace that it becomes increasingly difficult to compete if your business relies on outdated tech.
- People expect an exceptional user experience when they interact with technology. When your technological user experience fails to meet up with what someone can do on their mobile device, you’re being judged. Poorly.
- Outdated tech, or a cobbled-together tech stack, limits your ability to respond to the needs of your organization and to changes in the market.
The bottom line is that your tech stack could be affecting your bottom line!
Two: Your Tech Stack Affects Your Team’s Efficiency 📈
Your biggest cost every year most likely comes from personnel. When you burden your team with bad technology, it’ll take them more time to do their jobs. They get less done, and your business can’t benefit from their expertise for additional efforts.
Research shows employees waste more than 500 hours each year on repetitive tasks they could automate through software. The right tech stack can help with this.
Bad technology is slow and inefficient. The best tech stack anticipates your needs and adjusts to them, which saves your staff time.
Three: The Right Tech Stack Can Fuel Growth 🚀
Whether it’s great marketing automation or a connector between apps, great technology not only helps increase revenue… it helps decrease expenses.
A tech stack that helps your marketing team automate emails, enables your sales team to increase efficient communications, connects your payment software with your accounting system and brings the right reports into easy-to-understand dashboards will fuel growth in the year to come.
Understanding your current tech stack is only half the battle. If you want to focus on growth in 2020, you’ll need to understand the bigger picture of what you’re trying to accomplish and what solutions are out there for your journey.
Four: Technology is Always Changing 💾 📀 💻
If you haven’t reviewed your tech stack in a while, how do you know if it’s current?
A business provides technology to its employees to help augment their productivity by saving time and effort, reduce human error and drive speed of service to customers.
But if your tech stack is outdated it becomes a daily source of frustration for your team, wasting valuable time and constantly interrupting their workflow.
With so much tech changing so often, how do you keep up?
Reviewing your tech stack yearly can help you increase the chance you’ll stay in front of changes, reducing frustrations in your team.
A less frustrated team means higher productivity and certain growth.
Five: With Thousands of Marketing Tools Available, Technology is Table Stakes 🤯
Simply having technology is easy. The cost of tech has fallen over the years, and you can affordable solutions for almost any business need.
This is especially true in the marketing arena.
Simply having marketing automation software is table stakes when it comes to modern business growth.This means understanding the MarTech landscape and investigating the right solutions for your business is critical.
But how do you do that? Where do you start?
Reviewing your current tech stack and researching the rest of the tech world with a third party expert is a great place to start. You can also look over Scott Brinker’s MarTech Landscape Supergraphic.
Six: The Tech Stack You Have May be Your Hiring Differentiator 🌠
The technology you provide your employees says a lot about how you treat your team and the culture at your company. With the talent war in full swing and businesses going to great lengths to build winning teams, having a current, efficient and powerful tech stack could make all the difference in attracting and retaining top talent.
With around 3 million more jobs than job seekers, it’s a critical component to your 2020 growth plan. Imagine seeing a job listing that asks for proficiency in Office 2010. You’d likely run the opposite direction.
The right tech stack will attract innovative employees who will take your business further, faster. It’s time to grow better through a top-tier tech stack.
Seven: The Wrong Technology Can Put You at Risk 😱
Security plays a big role in any new technology your brand implements. Your business hangs on to all kinds of important information from the people who engage with it. Contact information is just the beginning of the data you collect.
People trust you. It’s really the most important part of the relationship you have with your community. People do business with people (and brands) they get to know, like and trust.
One security breach could destroy those all-important relationships. An unmonitored tech stack without e top-notch security could be a factor in actually driving people away from your business.
Security is a critical pillar of a superior tech stack. Without it, your community’s personal information is at risk at being stolen or misused.
It’s Time to Review Your Tech Stack 🔍
Investing in enterprise technology solutions can be expensive. It might give you all kinds of anxiety just thinking about it.
But the typically harrowing endeavor is no excuse to bury your head in the sand and hope for the best.
Each day, technology evolves at an increasing rate. Waiting too long to provide your employees and customers with a technological user experience that truly aligns with your brand is going to come back to bite you in any number of ways.
Your tech stack is critical to your 2020 marketing plan.
Technology photo by Domenico Loia on Unsplash