When Buying New Technology, You’re Making a Bet. Is It a Smart One?

In the business world, we’re always looking for ways to be more efficient and to get an edge on the competition. As a result, we’re constantly buying new technology.

Some of it works out well and some of it doesn’t. Sometimes we buy new technology because we think it will make us more efficient and we find out that isn’t true. Other times we buy new technology because we think it won’t make us more efficient but then find out that it does.

It’s important to consider these things when making investments in your business. When you purchase new technology, you are making a bet that your money will be returned to you at some point in the future through greater efficiency and/or increased sales.

If you’re in charge of a business, it’s your job to make sure that the business runs smoothly. If there are problems, you try to solve them with new technology. If there are areas of improvement, you try to improve them with new technology. But when you do this, you’re making a bet. So how can you tell if it’s a smart one?

New technology makes things better. That’s why we want it, and that’s why businesses invest in it. We want to be more productive, more efficient and more profitable than we were before. We want our customers to be happier than they were before. This is the goal, but achieving these goals takes time.

There are two types of bets: safe bets and risky bets. Safe bets are ones where your investment has a good chance of paying off quickly, like buying a new computer for an employee who needs it to do their job. Risky bets are ones where your investment has a good chance of paying off eventually but will take longer than expected to see results or even fail completely.

When you’re buying technology for your company, you’re making a bet. You’re betting that the tool will make your employees more productive. You’re betting that the features and functionality of the tool will be able to solve your problems. You’re betting that the solution will integrate with other tools you may already have in place. And you’re also betting that you won’t outgrow the tool or have to replace it after a year or two. A lot of bets.

So how do you know if it’s a smart one? How do you know whether or not your bet will pay off?

Know what you want to get out of it.

While technology is typically seen as the solution, we need to remember that it should be helping us solve an actual problem — and we need to clearly define what that problem is before we go shopping for a solution. What are our goals? What are we trying to accomplish? Do we want to reduce costs? Improve customer service? Increase productivity? How do we measure success? Knowing these key elements can help us find a technology that actually addresses our needs and aligns with our goals, rather than just ticking off a list of features.

Business owners are always on the lookout for new technology to make their lives easier. New software can streamline processes and cut down on the time and money it takes to get things done, but many are reluctant to make a big purchase when there’s no guarantee that they’ll see a return. Here are some tips on how to determine if a new piece of technology is worth making a bet on.

How Does It Affect Your Bottom Line?

All purchases made for your business should ultimately benefit your bottom line, but some are less clear than others. A new phone system that saves you $100 per month is easily justifiable, for example. But what about an expensive CRM that could improve customer satisfaction, or a platform that can automate your invoicing?

You may not be able to calculate how much money you’ll save from these types of purchases, but you can still determine whether or not they’re worth the investment by thinking about how they will help you in other ways. For example, perhaps having better client information stored in one place allows you to provide better service and earn more referrals down the road. Maybe that automated invoicing platform will free up an employee who can take on more valuable tasks instead of sending out bills

Every time you buy new technology for your business, you’re making a bet. Will the technology reach maturity? Will it deliver on its promises?

When you adopt early, at the beginning of a product cycle, you take the most risk. If you don’t invest in new tech, though, there’s a good chance you’ll fall behind competitors who do. So how do you balance these risks?

Here are some questions to ask before buying new technology:

“In the modern world of business, it is useless to be a creative, original thinker unless you can also sell what you create.”

― David Ogilvy

If you are in business, you need to consider technology as a means of improving efficiency and increasing productivity. If you fail to do so, you will likely lose out to your competitors. When considering new technologies for your business, be sure that the investment is a smart one.

The first step in determining whether or not an investment in technology is a wise one is to determine whether or not the product or service will truly improve the efficiency of your business. Will the item simply automate or streamline processes that are already being done efficiently? If so, then it may not be worth investing in. It is important that you only invest in technology that addresses actual problems within your business.

The business world has many ways of saying “gamble”: hedge your bets, take a chance, make an investment, or simply buy new technology. But that’s all it is: a gamble. And like most other gambles, you win some and lose some.

There are, however, a few things you can do to increase the likelihood that you’ll win more than you lose. The most important is to use a disciplined approach to decision making and planning. When you’re faced with an opportunity — whether it’s an acquisition, a new product line, a partnership or even an idea for a new enterprise — don’t just consider how much money and time it will cost or what the potential payoff will be; examine the process by which it might happen and the resources that will be needed. In short, make sure you do your homework.

This may sound obvious, but all too often companies buy new technology because they see others doing so and want to keep up with their competition. Such decisions are rarely successful because they aren’t based on any thoughtful analysis of the company’s needs and opportunities.

The recent history of e-commerce provides a good example of this phenomenon. For several years during the late 1990s, many companies jumped into e-commerce without thinking through