The impact of ICT in every aspect of human endeavour is undeniable. This is especially true in business – should the Internet or your bank’s application stop working, many businesses will experience severe disruptions, and ultimately, sudden failure 🙂 In this article, we discuss those factors you should consider in deciding how much ICT your business actually needs to thrive. Are you investing too much or too little on ICT? The right amount can significantly reduce your operating costs. Let’s find out how…
To ascertain how much ICT your business needs, it is important to clearly define your core competence. Put simply, what is the primary objective? Why does the exist? What’s your business extremely great at doing? Using a typical restaurant, their core competence will entail satisfying hungry or adventurous customers with a specific budget range.
Since the norm is that customers visit the restaurant, the restaurant owners needs to critically determine if their target customers actually need their services at home, work or at their preferred location, before deploying a mobile app for ordering food. Another consideration might be if the restaurant seeks to create a new market for its services.
Hopefully, you are coming to the realization that it could either be a wise investment or a waste of resources, to launch an app for your business..
What if it turns out to be a great idea to deploy a Mobile App for your business? By considering core competence, make-or-buy decisions will be better informed. Using the restaurant example, since providing ICT services is not among the core competence, of the restaurant, the owners of the restaurant should seriously consider outsourcing the development of their mobile app.
Other considerations such as the logistics of delivery, customer service, mid- and long-term maintenance of the app, staff competencies, brand requirements, safety, regulatory compliance, cost-effectiveness, etc., will also influence their decision to also consider engaging the services of a dispatch company or perhaps, subscribing with an existing brand that can manage the entire process of ensuring food is delivered to the customer in a timely manner, while they remain focused on their core competence of preparing delicious food recipes.
Lastly, matters of branding, trust, safety and hygiene, etc., cannot be ignored for a restaurant or any business in the hospitality or tourism industry. Before deploying an ICT platform or solution for your business, you can reach out to our consultants.
Although All Businesses need ICT to remain productive, efficient and competitive, if ICT is not their core competence, they should seriously consider outsourcing unless there are key benefits to be derived from doing otherwise...
Conclusion.
As much as it is practicable, core business functions such as operations, administration, sales, etc., should be ICT-driven in the digital age we live in. ICT-driven platforms are phenomenally more efficient, effective, and cost-effective. We can always take a cue from how banks have grown as a result of their investment in technology. There are numerous software that can help businesses of all sizes with their ICT needs. These software programs are discussed in a separate article.
Unless your business is great at developing ICT solutions, possesses such capabilities as part of its core competence, or it intends investing massively in human resources with such capabilities, your ICT needs might be best outsourced. Additional considerations such as brand requirements, trust, safety, regulatory compliance, cost-effectiveness, etc., should inform the final decisions.
This article was developed by ‘Lekan Olaleye PMP, for BRIC Africa. ‘Lekan has over 20-years cognate experiences managing businesses, from software development, research and project management. He is the CEO of Limitless, an ICT solutions and training company.