Do a business case before the technology case.
Whether you’re looking to purchase your first piece of software or upgrade your organisation’s current system, you should put together a Business Case to justify the investment and clarify the reasons for even purchasing new technology.
Create a simple business case for every project. When you have a solid Business Case, you seek the best technology to suit your situation. However, you should never purchase technology and try to make it fit the objectives.
When we think of the most significant and successful innovations, they all focus on the enhancing elements they deliver to users, not the technical aspects. Know that an uncompromising focus on employee, member and customer satisfaction sets excellent organisations apart.
Organisations risk losing touch without genuinely adopting a customer-centric approach, becoming irrelevant, and declining. So, how can you deliver member-focused satisfaction through creativity and innovation?
Make a breakthrough, overcoming the issues.
Too many organisations and projects have failed because those involved spent too much time fiddling with technology possibilities before fully developing the Business Case. In addition, most have challenges with cash flow, so why give yourself additional worries by putting ‘the cart before the horse’?
There is no one technology-fits-all approach to preparing a Business Case. However, it is essential to involve employees, members, and key stakeholders and maintain a customer-centric focus. Intuition is excellent, but so is the Shed’s customer input.
Your Business Case should identify areas for innovation. The best way to create valuable innovations is to identify employee, customer and community problems and frustrations before purchasing any technology. Then, the technology should be able to address their critical issues.
Innovation does not mean you have to have a new or worldwide breakthrough. Instead, innovation is about delivering a change to the organisation, which helps drive long-term success for everyone involved.
The Key Message: Technology systems, tools, and processes can help you think and operate your organisation significantly better, but first, do the Business Case.
Quotable quotes.
“Until I came to IBM, I probably would have told you culture was just among several essential elements in any makeup and success, along with vision, strategy, marketing, financials, and the like. In my time at IBM, I came to see that culture isn’t just one aspect of the game; it is the game. In the end, an organisation is nothing more than the collective capacity of its people to create value”. Louis Gerstner,