How to upgrade your digital technology to grow your business

Author:  Leanne Knowles

First published: December 2020

Article updated: August 2024

3 minute read

Introduction

If your business is not dominating its market niche, it can feel like an uphill struggle all the way.  You will need a clear competitive advantage, and technology can become a key element for success.

Most industry sectors are crowded with many businesses competing for the same customers. Small and medium sized businesses are often competing with large and well-resourced competitors.

So how to do create a competitive advantage under those conditions?

Using your technology to enhance and highlight the natural strengths of your business is one really important way to do it.

That’s why I’ve put together an easy to implement 7 Step Checklist to help your business navigate.  Once you know what questions to ask, and where to focus your attention, you can take the first step towards getting the answers you need.

1. Strategy Review
2. Business Needs Review
3. Prioritize Investment
4. Shortlist
5. Integration
6. Budget & Action Plan
7. Don’t Go It Alone

Without it, you could find your business being overlooked by your ideal customers, and struggling to get the return on investment that you want from your sales and marketing expenditure.

How to create a competitive advantage with digital technology

A clear competitive advantage is essential for strong revenue growth and sustainable profitability. Making the right decision about what software you will need can future proof your business,

Where does your business really excel?  Its best if you focus on one area for this exercise.

1. Product leadership and innovation
2. Customer experience
3. Operational excellence (cost, speed, convenience)

After you have identified which area in you excel…then you can go deeper and consider how new technology can supercharge that activity.

Product Leadership?

• Quality Product?
• Greatest Choice?
• Aesthetic Appeal?
• Status?

Customer Experience?

• Flexible & Convenient?
• Easy to Use?
• Great Service?

Operational Excellence

• Fastest?
• Most Reliable?
• Cheapest?

7 steps to choosing your digital technology

To simplify decision making for business owners, their management team and IT advisors,  I have distilled the decision-making process into 7 simple steps.

1. Strategy Review

• Review your business goals, strategy and your 1-5-year priorities
• Focus on your competitive advantage
• (Review the Competitive Advantage list above if you need to

2. Business Needs Review

• Start with your key business functions and give each a performance score out of 10
• Consult with your team
• Consider your product differentiation strategy in the discussions

3. Prioritize Investment

• Decide which business function needs the earliest attention, based on Urgent v Important

4. Shortlist

• Research and shortlist software options that meet your needs for function, integration and scale.

5. Integration

• Assess the potential for each platform to integrate well with each of the other key pieces of software in your business

6. Budget & Action Plan

• Prepare your budget and timeline for action

7. Don’t Go It Alone

• Prepare your budget and timeline for action
• Get Support
• Don’t forget training

What kind of businesses can use these strategies? 

Almost all businesses can reorganise their approach to create new recurring revenue streams.

How to take the next step to upgrade your digital technology

Creating a true competitive advantage and differentiation strategy is both a science and an art, and your technology will play an important part in the science side of the equation.

Get My 3 Scalability Shortcuts

Here is My 3 Scalability Shortcuts that I have used in my own business to help me build out my digital strategy.  It’s yours for free and it’s an easy download, so just click on the link below and you’re on your way to the next step.

Yes! Give Me My 3 Scalability Shortcuts.