Using technology background to your advantage!

Using technology background to your advantage! September 25, 2007

Posted by mukundmohan in Technology.
Tags: B2B, Geek Marketing, humor, IT, Technology
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Say you are a technology person (you know B2B, EDI, VAN, Gateway, RosettaNet, etc.) Are you smart though? And how can you use it to your advantage?

Karen E. Klein posted this article on BusinessWeek: Why ‘Total Geeks’ Build Businesses Faster.

It’s about a survey of business leaders’ attitudes toward IT and showed an owner’s level of tech savvy is linked to growth in revenue and employee count

The survey conducted by CDW showed that the top challenges of growth-oriented entrepreneurial companies were employee issues and managing information technology.

The Business Review Mirror survey, which is downloadable, was carried out across a wide range of industries of small to medium-sized companies that had reported various degrees of positive growth.

One of the questions posed to CEOs was to choose several significant challenges faced while growing. Managing information technology to an advantage garnered a 38% response, just below employee recruiting and retention.

When asked about expertise with technology, the CEOs were give options including:

Total Geek
Power User
Slide Rule User

Total Geeks and Power Users totaled 81%, while Slide Rule Users were less than 1%. Companies integrating IT into business strategies early experienced faster growth than their counterparts.

While 98% of respondents said their company had a defined IT strategy as a small business, those who viewed IT as a “strategic or competitive resource” tended to grow faster than CEOs who said they “spent just enough” to ensure that employees could do their jobs.

The two biggest mistakes reported? Not integrating technology into our business strategy sooner, and not taking advantage of technology acquired.

Companies often aren’t sure what they really need, and may buy something that doesn’t meet their needs. In order to implement new software, they may change business processes, or maybe they’ve underestimated the work needed to integrate new technology.

The Bottom Line: We appreciate Total Geek CEOs, and suggest you reconsider investing in duplicate technologies to integrate a B2B supply chain.