How Business Technology Assessment Helps Meet Business Goals
Learn what business technology assessment is and the signs your company needs it. Achieve business objectives faster and with fewer resources.
How Business Technology Assessments Help Align IT with Business Goals
Business automation and workflow optimization based on SaaS or custom software development are long-lasting trends. The global digital transformation market is growing at a 13% compound annual growth rate, which means more companies are investing in software to support their business operations.
Despite all the benefits, the rapid expansion of technologies doesn't always deliver the expected outcomes. Companies choose wrong stacks or fail to align it with their business goals. Such decisions may result in substantial technology investments that don't pay off as expected.
If that's your case, a business technology assessment can help detect inefficiencies and create a more strategic approach to software infrastructure. Learn the signs you might benefit from a business technology needs assessment and how it is conducted.
What is Business Technology Assessment About?
A business technology assessment evaluates a company's current technology infrastructure, systems, and processes to determine how they align with business goals and identify areas for improvement. A cross-functional team that is usually provided by an external consultancy runs an audit to determine an overall technology health rating, estimated business impact, and major issues. Then, it provides practical recommendations on how to achieve the desired goals, with prioritized changes and short-term vs. long-term initiatives. Despite being comprehensive, a business technology assessment usually covers specific areas for in-depth research.
Measurable Impact of Business Technology Needs Assessment
According to McKinsey research, 57% of respondents at top-quartile organizations stated that their senior tech leaders participate in strategic planning. At bottom-quartile organizations, only 17% do that. Top performers are also more likely to engage digital and business-oriented teams in technology delivery.
This difference illustrates the practical benefits of aligning technology with larger corporate goals and shows why business technology assessment matters. By running an expert audit of their existing systems, companies can:
- Learn how to achieve business objectives faster and with fewer resources. Tech assessments map the adopted software systems with your business strategy, eliminating wasteful resource use and making your digital transformation efforts more focused.
- Optimize expenses and redistribute the budget more efficiently. Profound analysis identifies unnecessary or underutilized software components to eliminate them or make their operation more efficient. It lets you cut expenses and achieve a higher return on investment.
- Strengthen security and prevent regulatory breaches. Audits help detect security vulnerabilities and evaluate compliance with global and industry-specific regulations.
- Improve customer experience and quality of services. Such assessments evaluate the impact of technology on customer services, among other things, enabling businesses to improve their offering and strengthen customer loyalty.
- Gain a competitive advantage. By operating more efficiently and relying on optimized software systems, you can outperform competitors that use outdated or unsuitable technology.
In other words, business technology assessment can make software-dependent workflows more efficient. By implementing changes and a data-driven approach to software adoption, you streamline the work of in-house teams, boost business performance, and enhance customer service.
Signs Your Company Will Benefit From Business Technology Assessment
The optimal moment to consider technology assessment services is before you plan the next digital transformation and make a considerable investment in technology. Such an audit helps understand the current situation and ensure your tech strategy will help achieve the outlined goals. Here are some other signs it may be the right time to run a business technology needs assessment:
- You face regular tech-related complaints from the team and/or customers. If end-users complain about systems being slow, crashing too often, or lacking the necessary features, you need to review them.
- You fail to meet your business objectives. The most common roadblocks detected by business technology assessment are outdated systems, redundant tools, low performance, high maintenance costs, and skill gaps. They may prevent you from achieving your business goals and ensuring stable company growth.
- You consider adopting new software systems or business workflows. An assessment enables you to define business and functional requirements first, and see whether your existing systems can be upgraded to meet them. Then, you can decide between updating your current software or integrating new solutions, taking into account risks and ROI.
- You face limitations because of outdated systems. When technical debt increases and legacy systems hinder scaling, a tech assessment can identify the changes necessary to reduce long-term costs and remove bottlenecks.
- You are involved in mergers and acquisitions. Business technology assessments help verify system compatibility, detect duplicate tools, and evaluate integration options beforehand.
Thanks to business technology assessment, you get a more realistic value of software investments. You understand the current position and obtain a clear roadmap to modify or optimize operations based on strategic objectives.
Technology Assessment Process Explained
Experienced engineering vendors tailor the business technology assessment process to a specific use case, as not every business would benefit from the same type of audit. Below, we outline the standard flow you can expect when running a business technology assessment.
Define Business Goals and Interview Stakeholders
An assessment team estimates the scope of work, narrowing it down to a problematic business unit or system. They interview stakeholders to clarify the pain points, strategic goals, and expectations. End users can also be involved to identify the practical issues with an existing tech infrastructure. It’s critical to combine multiple data sources to build a comprehensive picture, from basic issues to corporate-level bottlenecks.
Review Current Technology
At this point, engineers identify legacy systems, technical debt, and performance issues. You receive a current-state architecture overview with an application and system inventory. Tech experts also assess the overall system indicators, including security, scalability, reliability, and cost.
Understand Core Business Workflows and Capabilities
After evaluating the technology landscape, the team completing an assessment outlines key business processes, identifying manual workflows and automation opportunities. They also evaluate user experience to see whether the end-users are satisfied with the software and find it convenient. It's also necessary to check data quality and governance, as well as the security measures in place.
Run Maturity and Gap Analysis
The team compares the current state of the system with the expected business results and best practices to detect the gaps. They may use a structured maturity model to make sure the results are objective and comparable. We recommend breaking the assessment into more specific domains (e.g., Architecture, Infrastructure and Cloud, Security, etc.) to evaluate them separately.
Summarize Findings and Prioritize Changes
Assessors analyze the direct business impact of technology issues to detect weaknesses and see which updates can bring the most significant change. They create a report with prioritized recommendations, a development roadmap, estimated ROI, and risk reduction impact. Then you can rely on these findings to decide which software decisions would have the highest positive impact.
Scalors for Business Technology Assessment and Optimization
Scalors is an engineering company offering custom development services tailored to specific business goals. We can audit your existing systems and deliver a personalized plan to enhance their operation, whether through optimization or implementing new solutions. Scalors can complete an engineering project end-to-end or provide staffing services to grow your in-house team.
Fill out a brief contact form for free consulting. Tell us about your case and learn how we can help achieve your business goals through software implementation.
