Technology Solutions Firms: Three keys to success that can be implemented anywhere

After experience interning at a technology solutions company in New York City, here are three things I picked up which any IT firm can implement and/or take note of for business success.

Communicating with Clients and Superiors

This first point is obvious, but is very much crucial. Deliverance of high-value work for a services buyer comes down to much more than just working hard and logging long hours; working smart and efficiently tends to yield greater results, client respect, and potentially repeat clients who seek out multiple services from the same company. A successful tech solutions firm will demonstrate various forms of project-based check-ins, whether this is seen through a one-on-one discussion with management or a phone call with a client. With communication, employees can ensure their partners are obtaining exactly what they want instead of fumbling around trying to guess specific client demands. Management serves as an excellent resource too, as managerial technology roles tend to place bosses in human resource to technology-communication positions. By actively listening to management and being attentive with scheduling, a boss or other superior should have no trouble helping their employees communicate back to their partners or customers.

Emails and phone calls can work well for quick fixes and updates, but circumstances of highest significance lie within face-to-face communication. When it comes time to bring technical and front-end management aspects together, business meetings are the capstone to ensuring hard work is delivered to clients in its best state. Meetings are a “powerful business weapon” according to Exforsys Incorporated, a technology consulting and training company. Often functioning as deal sealers, they can be the ultimate decider in a business partnership while simultaneously building better bonds between employees and their customers. This business practice, while it may seem obvious, also serves as an excellent way to budget, assign employees their technical roles, and begin communication with a client to assess their problem and build a solution plan. And, with some creativity and a meal budget, these discussions can even be taken to more exclusive levels over a business dinner instead of a traditional office setting. The meeting tool functions like food with organisms: companies, and especially IT companies, cannot exist without them.

Keeping Up With Industry Trends

The word “trend” transcends many different meanings, but, in computing and digital terms, it comes down to keeping technology modern, safe, and up to date. Android developers at Google do not send massive software updates to their customers’ smartphones just to make app icons look nicer – these updates may address security flaws in a previous version of Android a user was working with. “Keeping up with the Joneses” in the enterprise technology world is as standard as can be: Firms need to make money by addressing client needs. Because technology continuously evolves, client needs evolve too. This ideology originates from the mind of Robert Metcalfe, the inventor of Ethernet. Upon observing the global domination of information exchange and connectivity, Metcalfe determined the value of a network is proportional to the square of the amount of users connected to that network (value implies utility, or satisfaction, gained from using a computer network – more user data is stored as more people use it). This econometric internet rule, known as Metcalfe’s Law, rings true in every way. Fast forward to 2017: not one individual with a smartphone or computer is staying offline. Because of this constantly growing set of benefits technology grants the world with, the trend of “evolving” technology will never stop.

To keep up with these inclinations, corporations can send their employees to conferences and expos to receive information for their technology “watch list” specific to their field (this is important – an application security company should not be attending the conference discussing virtual reality headsets). Employees can also be sent to various locations for tool and software training, allowing them to bring new skills to their firm for troubleshooting. Companies may also set up booths at conferences to obtain inside scoops and network with potential clients to see new demands. Additionally, a simple Google search can yield results from renowned websites such a Forbes or TechRadar, where new trends are deftly listed for easy viewing, ranging from data automation to cyber security, and even to AI (Artificial Intelligence). In the news, technology problems are discussed every day, and companies should also follow trends via outlets and online research.

Have a Sales Team – A Really Good Sales Team

The best technology services in the world will never get anywhere if people do not know about them – this is where sales come in. The goal of a sales team in a technology company, within any company for that matter, is to convince potential partners ( known as prospects in sales terms) that a firm’s services are worth buying and implementing. Despite being one of the lesser technical roles of the tech discipline, the position of a salesperson actually proves to be quite challenging. When taking this to an information technology level, most especially with non-technical clients, salespeople need to bring the “big picture” across for prospects if they want their services to be used.

Instead of saying, “This is how we are putting your new technology in,” the intelligent salesman or woman must instead say, “This is what our new technology can do for you” to allow a potential customer time to visualize results instead of harp on enacting the technology – the job of other employees. Additionally, questions are a crucial element in the sales process, and they are not just occurring on the client side. When about to deliver new technologies to sales opportunities (people interested in a firm’s services), salespeople need to make sure their client understands what their upgrade is able to do for them. By matching the tone, discussing common issues, and, of course, asking about customer needs, the sales process will be better altogether. This end-to-end discussion between sales and customers allows competitive sales advantages, a continuous drive of a sales conversation, and repeat clients willing to reap additional services from the same solutions firm. Ultimately, building a relationship with customers is a sure-fire way to keep business opportunities coming in.

Successful sales also lie in a salesperson’s ability to know what they are selling and where the sale will go. Knowing everything about a product or service is a given, and one can tell immediately tell if a product is worth purchasing just based on a salesperson’s knowledge (a lack of it likely means a salesperson is not confident enough in the ability of a product or service to do its job). Being proud of the product and knowing exactly what it can do for others means a green light for purchases and service demand. Product and service knowledge for selling can be enhanced via discussion with management or back-end employees. Additionally, attending technology expos and conferences as a salesperson can advance overall knowledge of new technologies and trends in one’s area of an industry, as mentioned beforehand.

There you go! Take these into to your company and you can thank me later. Best of luck!