If SaaS, PaaS & IaaS sounds like another language you should read all of this this as it will help you see the inevitable future of your business technology, hopefully in a way that’s not as bamboozling as some technical articles can be.

(If you already understand the acronyms very well scrod down the iPhone)Described by a non-technical person who has understood the importance for you and your future profitability, this could help you see what’s going on in the fast changing landscape of business and technology today, ultimately for your fiscal benefit.

First why the need for a non tec description and why would a technology company look to employ a non tec guy to promote and sell their tec?

Are they mad? No.

Why? In simple terms, good tech is programmed by people who can comfortably answer the most complicated of tec questions as and when they are raised. DMS are exactly that group of individuals and they have successfully programmed solutions for over 30 years. However, it is more commonly business owners that are looking at tec these days. Yes they often employ someone to understand look after tec while they go about the running of the business but like all good business people keeping abreast of the market is what keeps you ahead of the game. Business are sometimes now even being run by tec, so todays business owner really needs an understanding. Hence a non tec selling tec helps introduce and educate in a way that might be more easily taken on board in these times which are changing ever more quickly.

So, Hello from the non tecky tec salesman!

Don’t runaway because I said ‘sales’! Yes I do sell but this isn’t a direct pitch and I’m certainly not the old school Kirby/window/second hand car type pressure or even the new NLP thing, so don’t panic. Inform, listen, answer questions and take orders is what I do. The product does the hard bit very well, it sells its self.

Let me explain just a little more about that, I remember a time working in a website and portal tech start up company. They needed product data to make a portal worth looking at, so came up with a fairly ingenious method of gaining it. They created free self service website technology to have the stock data they needed for the portal uploaded into their servers. They could then gain permission to use this data to benefit the free website user further by generating them leads from the portal that showed the products and their branding etc.

Clever you’d think, but the market they chose was one that is steeped in history and the then sales experts in their field employed someone to use and tried to avoid the computer in their office themselves where ever humanly possible. For them business is done on the high street and in person with people who have seen them and that is it. The rest is ‘modern costly rubbish’ I was told. But times quickly changed and within a decade they were proven wrong by their customers who had nearly all moved into a digital first pattern.

In the same way as in most industries the larger organizations that have been forward thinking, quickly adopting new methods and tec to enhance their offering and branding, increase their reach and ability to appeal to a significantly wider audience did best. This was achieved by some larger brands by ‘dominating that social media stuff’ as they said. The common question came in from the others of ‘How do I do this twatter and facecloth thingy?’ Then

The inevitable newby mistakes were made.

Social is advertising yes, but like putting a radio advert on a billboard some things don’t work the same on certain advertising mediums as they do on others. Post after post of product was plastered all over in a way that was not informative, interesting, amusing, emotive, or indeed any of the social things it should be to be a success. Plastering of guff…. which has the result of unfollow unsubscribe and never a like or share in sight.

Now the point I’ve come a long way around the houses to make here is; time moves on and so must you unless you want to be left behind and become part of history. Look at the high street and the number of shops available to rent! Notice how you look on your phone or computer to buy everything now? Technology has taken over and it moves at an astonishing rate that is getting quicker.

The speed of change is best demonstrated and portable memory is a great example to use. For the older readers who remember floppy disks in the 1970’s that were huge and floppy 8” squares that then got smaller to 5.25” they will remember them becoming even smaller again and not floppy at 3.5” in a rigid plastic case, with by this stage a typical whopping 1.44Mb of storage. They looked like this:

Through the 90’s many data storage formats were developed and CD’s became popular for data as well as music. By the millennium DVD storage with a huge 4.7Gb had been released. However the speed advantage, amongst others, of solid state memory over spinning disks is where we are today. Not only is there a huge difference in speed, a 3.5” floppy at 500KBps vs a micro SD card at 100Mps or more (i.e. 500 times faster!), but the difference in storage size is quite astonishing and best illustrated.

In the back of many smart phones, cameras, hand held games consoles and more digital devices is a little micro SD memory card. Today in 2018 you can buy one of these micro SD cards that is roughly the size of your little fingernail that can hold whopping 512Gb of data. Here’s one:

Let’s go back to the floppy and put this ‘fingernail’ into a little physical perspective, the average UK male height is reported to be 1.778 meters:

That’s a stack 2.3463 meters high if 3.5″ floppy disks for just 1 Gb of storage.

The second tallest mountain in the UK, Carin Edge at 1182 Meters above sea level, is not as high as the equivalent stack of floppy disks would be to store 512Gb.

The stack of 3.5” floppy disks would tower over 1.2 kilometers high compared to today’s fast fingernail!

The point I make here is we are in a ever quickening state of technical evolution and unless you make your business run on an agile solution that has the proven track record of evolving you will ultimately pay the same price that those empty shops have on the high street and become as commercially viable as an 8″ floppy disk.

Where do I begin to imagine how to cope with what doesn’t exist yet?

Amazon is a household name and they have spent 12 years investing very heavily into deep learning and artificial intelligence to enable them to predict and evolve ahead of the trends.

Assuming you don’t have the finances that Amazon do the best method is to be a part of something bigger than you alone, sharing the load and gaining multiple benefits. But you still have be able to do this while having a competitive edge, the ability to make it your own. That way you get to benefit from the advancements and trends exhibited all over the bigger system but without having to change your processes to match an of the shelf software to evade the cost and ongoing development and maintenance of bespoke. One of the most redeeming features of SaaS being others manage and develop everything to retain you as a client into the future.

This is where the whole IaaS / PaaS / SaaS premise comes from. If you have a server in your business you will likely have an understanding of the fact that despite you shelling out a small fortune for both the hardware and the software on it, it will inevitably become pretty much obsolete in 4-8 years.

Lets look at a working example of hardware.

In 2007, 11 years ago the first iPhone was launched. Since 2013 in the eyes of Apple this hardware is ‘obsolete’ and they don’t support it. The 3rd party software has also within a few years followed suit due to dwindling numbers of users and the cost of supporting, if possible, the software in the aging phone.

In fact the software designed for the iPhone 4 & 5 that were launched in 2010 & 2012, only 8 & 6 years ago, are hardly supported and fast becoming hardly supported. If you want new apps they just are not available for download at all because the operating system is not current and can not be updated as the hardware is set to not allow it.

The cycles of release and functioning life are becoming closer and closer together as the advancements speed up. No need for a removeable battery if the phones going to be obsolete before you wear the battery out of functioning well.

The slightly long winded point I’m making here is the importance of making a decision on the cloud and managed services as they provide right tec now and into the future for you to grow your business. Everything points to the fact that you will ultimately end up there anyway soon.

These cloud providers can spend the money and work full time on keeping the tec current and ahead of the game while ensuring the software is keeping up with trends and needs of both the business and the customer.

This leaves you to continue doing what you do well, running your business with the tools to optimise it now and into the future. The amazing part of this cloud offering is that although you would think it would cost you more to be at the cutting edge of the tec it actually costs you less, as you are effectively sharing the cost of enhancements and evolution with several other companies.

Ok, take a breath, that’s quite a read.

The thing I started with here, as you can tell, is that I’m not a teccy. I can’t program in code and I don’t fully understand systems architecture or a load of other terms your tec team would probably run rings around me with. (if they do I have programmers they can speak to on the same level) What I do know about your tec team is that they are always busy and never have time to accomplish everything on their task list. I’ve never seen an IT department anywhere twiddling their thumbs scratching around for something to do. Much the same as most departments in every business.

Anything that saves time, reduces cost, helps a business do more and make more profit is a good thing and more specifically what every owner is looking for, right?

Another huge benefit of migrating to the cloud is it gives you a chance to digitize your workflows and business processes.

Digitalization? What’s that?

Digitalization has become a huge hot business topic and in another article I quote a report that states the value to businesses of digitalization being in excess of $14 trillion!

There is no avoiding it, unless you ultimately want to be the proud owner of a closed business. So look at the bright side, start your business digitalization plan now and you will soon be working faster and the tec with be working harder to make you more.

Discuss or discover your business digitalization plan today, call 012760 702 500

Too much tec?

That’s why a non tec is selling tec. The tec does tec very well. There are technical people available to answer the really serious tec questions in a tec way. (Have I mentioned the word tec yet?)

My business function is creating new business, it is about understanding a need and helping others act to gain a benefit they desire by education and conveying information.

Requestbox can help you save on the serious cost of upgrading hardware, the cost and time involved when upgrading, migrating or evolving software, time performing tasks that can be automated and more. Your business goal of making more while increasing customer satisfaction can be achieved using Requestbox.

DMS tec geniuses know how to do their thing very well and given the input and reflection upon needs and solutions for a variety of different businesses requirements potentially better than you could tell them you want it done. I observe what the outcome solution is and how it can be applied in the business world and inform. The complicated magic can stay in the box, except the box is now a cloud!

All I have to do is show people how the magic can work for them and if they want it they can have it, if they don’t understand they can ask questions and I’ll help (especially if you like a car analogy!)

If it’s not for you then good luck. I have no problem with that, all I can do is show you a solution and ask that you point someone else toward it that might find it useful.

To discover more call 01276 702 500

or email a process / workflow to Charles@dms-management.com for a no obligation conversation and a demonstration of your:

Requestbox, the managed cloud solution ready to be configured for your profitable digitalized business future.