Monthly Archives: November 2024

Bring Information Technology Spending in Line with Business Objectives

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We’re headed for 2025, and it’s time to consider technology spending for the next year. How will you know the best allocation of your technology dollars? Read on to learn about how to align your tech budget with your business goals.

 

Getting Started with IT Budget Alignment

A LinkedIn article presents steps to follow in planning your IT budget. A good first step is understanding your overall business goals. What do you want to accomplish in the next year, and beyond? Broad goal categories include upgrading existing systems, reallocating spending to more critical areas, and investing in new technology. How will you use trends in technology–automation using artificial intelligence, for instance–to improve processes? Your company’s goals will be unique to you, and need to be prioritized according to what’s most vital.

 

Artificial intelligence offers great potential for increasing efficiency for your company. On the customer service front, it can automate processes like virtual chat, allowing conversational AI to handle routine questions and free up representatives for more complex tasks. Data analysis is streamlined and can efficiently provide insights. Network monitoring is improved, with automation allowing constant scans and identifying possible problems. Email messages are sorted, hence removing spam and forwarding the most important messages to the proper recipients. 

Assessing Your Current IT Spending

 

What is the state of your current technological ecosystem? Are you overspending on areas you don’t need to, and underspending in more important areas? What does each element of your technology contribute to business objectives? For example, you might need to move some systems and data to the cloud for greater flexibility and reduced costs. Do legacy systems you maintain still add value relative to what you spend? Answering these and other questions gives you a clear picture on where you need to focus technology dollars. 

 

The Role of Cybersecurity in Your Technology Budget

 

According to a LinkedIn article analyzing Forrester’s cybersecurity spending benchmarks, the average percentage of cybersecurity spending is only 5.7% of annual IT spend. Rather than being just a part of the IT department, spending on cybersecurity should be a decision made by the business as a whole. Ideally, spending on cybersecurity will be with a view toward proactive rather than reactive defense. Categories of spending include:

 

  • Processes like audits and cybersecurity measures
  • Technological tools including software purchases and network monitoring, and some outsourcing to third parties for businesses without an in-house IT team
  • Employee cybersecurity training

 

Once you have a clear picture of what you want to change, prioritize according to business objectives, such as improving customer experience, enhancing operational efficiency, or even driving innovation. Perhaps you want to increase efficiency in operations, which could involve using AI for automation of certain processes. 

 

Next Steps to Take

Communicate with Stakeholders

After setting priorities, communicate with and engage your stakeholders. They likely will have valuable input that you may not have thought of. Department heads, executives and end users inside and outside the business can tell you if any current initiatives are not meeting needs.  End users can tell you how technology you’ve adopted makes their job easier and improves experience. Department heads and executives can inform you about what is working and what isn’t. Keeping lines of communication open lets everyone know you value input and will use this input to align the tech budget with their needs.

 

Tracking and Fine-Tuning Your Progress

 

To keep track of your progress in alignment of IT spend, establishing KPIs (key performance indicators) as benchmarks for how IT projects contribute to broad goals will help make these goals measurable. Examples of KPIs include how much a certain IT initiative contributes to growth in revenue or promotes greater operational efficiency. How might adopting AI help automate tasks translate to how many minutes are saved through automation

 

Alignment doesn’t end when an IT budget is drawn up. Rather, it’s a continuous reassessment–obtaining feedback, analyzing it, and acting on it. Having a plan and being able to follow it will help you navigate changes in business priorities, market conditions or technology advancements. Then you can be agile and change spending priorities to drive your business where you want it to go.

 

Any new technology adopted should aid your business strategy and goals. For further guidance, contact your trusted technology advisor today.

Technology Trends for 2025 Provide New Possibilities and Require Consideration

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Gartner has released a tech trends report for 2025, and automation (especially through artificial intelligence) is a keystone. While technology has great potential for companies, depending on goals, it also carries challenges. Such challenges include costs in time, money and effort; legal and ethical considerations and guardrails for use; and adaptation of the workforce to changes. Read on to learn more about upcoming trends and why they matter for your business.

 

The Role of Artificial Intelligence

 

Artificial intelligence has been enabling automation and enhancing creativity for several years, and is a powerful tool. It has potential for numerous industries and every sort of business within those industries. One trend, agentic AI, can help you with automation of processes, which may save costs and time, augmenting or even taking over human tasks when appropriate. Nevertheless, guardrails are needed to ensure that the virtual agents operate according to parameters set up by humans. Not only that, you will need to assess how to harness AI to help meet your business goals, and make sure that its use is in accordance with your goals.

 

Platforms for AI governance will be another trend in technology. These platforms can help companies create and enforce policies for responsible use as well as show users how the AI systems work. For example, how do the systems remain free from harmful bias? And how to avoid disinformation? And what about those “deep fakes” we keep hearing about? You can bet that if you are using AI, so are malicious actors. They can combine pictures and audio to make it seem as though a customer is saying something negative about your brand. Disinformation security is another emerging technology trend that will help assess risk and prevent harmful narratives about your company.

 

Other Trends Making Using of Artificial Intelligence

 

A few other trends make use of artificial intelligence. Ambient invisible intelligence can provide a subtle and seamless customer experience, by the integration of technology into the environment. A business benefit is knowing more about the customer’s purchasing journey and user experience, yet customers might feel surveilled. Consent policies need to be created, so that users can choose what they share, and transparency will be needed.

 

Hybrid computing is set to become more popular, and will provide different mechanisms for computing, storage and networking. While hybrid computing can help artificial intelligence perform beyond present boundaries, it poses challenges. Security risks are created by autonomous models, and the cost of such experimental technology is high. Once again, it is up to you to determine whether this and other trends will align with your business goals and benefit your company and its stakeholders. Setting up guardrails for use of these technologies will require thought, time and effort.

 

While technology moves forward, you will need to evaluate the trends coming up in the next few years, and how you will harness technological innovation while navigating its challenges. For further guidance, contact your trusted technology advisor today.