How to know if you’re getting everything you need from your technology, and what to do if you aren’t

If you are left feeling uneasy or uncertain about your company’s use of technology then you’re in luck, there is a way to fix this! 
From my own experience with providing and supporting solutions over the years, I’ve learned that the most successful companies, in whatever their specialised field may be, have the following mastered. 

Let’s start from the top with identifying your needs and goals. 

Ah yes, Goals, who could have guessed this would be first. 
Defining your objectives and prioritising your needs is where your own expertise in your own specialised fields makes you so valuable in this process. 
No one knows your industry like you. 
Your focus here is determining what you want to achieve with your technology, this could be anything from Productivity to Communication. 
Once you have these locked down then prioritise and rank them while being as detailed as possible. 

Now with defined goals, use these to evaluate your current technology. 

The first step to this evaluation is to discuss the performance of your current systems with your staff. Keep a keen ear out for words like “Crashing”, “Lagging” or any other repeating issues. 

Now identify if there are key features missing from your systems that you have dreamed about. 
Features are what are built on top of the core functionality of your systems such as good, clean reporting, integrations with other systems or emailing directly from your system. As discussed during goals, use your own expertise here to determine what features are important to you and your business. 

Beware not to confuse Performance and Features with User Experience, which is an important factor but does need to be discussed with your team separately. User experience should be defined by how user friendly the system is, does the layout make sense and how easy it is to do their daily tasks. 

Now that you have armed yourself with clear goals and have carried out the evaluation, you can proceed with finding the right solution. 

You can start with doing your own research if you prefer. A good start is to look into user reviews as you may find that you are not the only one trying to achieve these goals with the same systems.  

Alternatively, you could investigate new systems as a potential replacement to your own, to achieve the goals you set forward. Taking advantage of trial periods, demos, and looking into user reviews of alternatives is a good way to understand what else is out there. 

Finally, and this is an important one, seek professional advice. 
MSPs can guide you through this process, intermediate with providers and give crucial advice in areas you may have not yet have thought about. These can be areas like assessing support quality from the vendor as this is key to keeping uptime as close to 100% as possible. 
Or help maintaining the systems licensing, certificates, domain records and maintenance so you can focus on what’s more important in your business. 
An MSPs goals, after all, is helping you achieve success.