Controlling Time

Time is scarce.

There's only so much of it and we're all (more or less) proportioned an equal amount of it. There's only 24 hours in a day, 168 hours in a week, 8,760 hours in a year. That's pretty constant.

So there might be a couple of considerations about time when developing a technology plan:

1. How can you and your staff maximize the use of time (personal efficiency)? How can the technology solutions you implement allow you to do more, to be more productive, within an ever-smaller slice of time?

2. How can you reduce the TRANSFORMATION time of a business? Those who went to business school know what I'm talking about. Classic business model, right? We take inputs and transform that raw material into outputs. When investing in technology, how can it increase the speed of transforming raw material into finished goods? 

3. How can you minimize time for the consumer? How can you invest in technology to both reduce their time commitment to do business with you? Whether or not that's reducing the amount of time in a check-out line, forgoing a phone call to self-service their needs on a mobile app, texting instead of emailing, self-check-out, a mobile-aware website, paying by a mobile device rather than a credit card ... all of these things reduce the time invested in doing business with you. That effect on the consumer-end of things is a strategic advantage.

4. How can you change the experience of time? Time is finite, yes, but the way we individually experience time is quite difference. How can you use technology to transform the experience that a consumer has with your company so that the time spent feels unique and extraordinary? That could be anything from what Disney does at its theme parks to using technology to tailor an experience that's all about that customer. 

5. How is your control of time related to your brand promise? Does your brand speak about trust, commitment, service, quality? How does your use of technology leverage time to fulfill your promise?

Time Isn't Just Money

If you believe the old nugget that time is money, Technology planning and strategy attempts to look at how time can be controlled and manipulated to ensure certain financial outcomes - attempting to optimize the use of time for you and your customer is a laudable goal. That's certainly true and just one side of the problem.

However, I believe that there's another qualified dimension to this problem of time: the way we feel about it. The way we experience it. People have no problem dropping large sums of cash in your pocket if you're able to deliver a consistent, amazing experience. Consider how you'd feel if:

A hotel concierge referred to you immediately by name, knew your arrival time and your preferences (as you booked everything easily from an App on your smart phone), had entertainment and dinner reservations automatically lined-up for you, a courteous bell-hop ready to help with your bags, then prepared in-stay linen, beverages, consumables like toothpaste and toothbrushes, towels, climate control ... every detail, just the way you like it, and expedited the checkout process through automated system. The stay was comfortable, easy, frictionless, effortless. Time was perceived much more relaxing. Technology surrounded this service capability. That perception is what will keep them coming back.

Now compare that to:

You have to make a phone call because the website reservation system is broken; you arrive and nobody expected you or knows who you are, and they're not particularly aware of your needs - nothing you like or want is in the room and you must go in search of it, maybe even buy it from a local grocer; arrange entertainment and dinner on the fly; stay in a room that doesn't have the right temperature; nobody at the desk could be found after several phone calls; breakfast was indifferent; the check-out process actually required a visit back to the concierge desk.  Time would be perceived as taxing, tedious, complex, a challenge. There was little technology involved with this delivery, and that terrible perception of time and experience is what will drive the customer away.

Use Technology to Control Both the Efficiency and Experience of Time

I think it's important for business owners and managers to look for opportunities where "time is money" and it can be made more efficient for both them and the customer, obviously, yes. Still, I think it's equally important for business owners to consider how time is relatively perceived and how their technology investments could be used to alter or manipulate that perception to add not just an efficient dimension to time, but, a quality dimension to time.

R

You're Lying: You Can Pay For It. You Just Choose Not To.

People Lie Through Their Teeth

They do it all of the time. They tell me, "Yeah, things are really tight right now. I love your service but, yeah, I don't have the money right now." And that's a bald-faced lie.

They do have the money. They've got to pay for the gasoline in their car, don't they? Or for food? Or for their mortgage to keep a roof over their head? Or to pay their employees.

It's never a question of whether or not a business has the money to do something. They've got the money. It's just that they've prioritized it for something else. Rational people prioritize their expenses.

Prioritization isn't bad. In my line of work, though, it befuddles strategic thinking, because my potential clients can either pay me today, or pay me tomorrow, or next month, or next year, but eventually, they'll pay me, and inevitably, they'll pay me more if they don't prioritize me.

Yeah, it sounds pretty smug but here's the idea: either we spend a little money right now to safeguard the IT asset, or, we'll spend a lot of money later to recover the IT asset. Safeguarding and implementing basic risk management principles is a whole heckavalot cheaper than disaster recovery. 

So they're lying. They're always lying! They could pay for it if they felt pain but they're not feeling pain now so it's not a priority. Once the pain hits, though, they're throwing money at me to solve their problem. To ease their pain. To make it go away.

And this just isn't tech. It's in any discipline where the consumer needs to prioritize spending today to have managed outcomes, whether or not that's automotive repair, dentistry, health care, chiropractic care, whatever. The consumer must be convinced to think strategically: in the long-run, it's less expensive to pay for mindful precaution than a panicked reaction. 

Therefore, there are two approaches to honing your strategic decision-making (or, convincing togethers to prioritize spending on you right now):

1. You can create a condition where the consumer feels pain now. Ethics, anyone?

2. You can convince or educate the consumer to avoid future pain by prioritizing their spending now. Perhaps more ethical, less coercive. 

Think about it. What's your strategy?

R

How to Evaluate Your Competitive Position

In discussing technology strategy with undergraduates, I emphasized the use of a strategic analysis tool that goes by the name of SWOT. SWOT stands for Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities, Threats. 

SWOT is a good, basic tool. It gives us perspective of our specific company, product, or business plan as it may react to external emergent market forces.

The internal analysis methods focus on the strategic position of your product as you perceive it in the context of strengths and weaknesses.

Strengths refers to the nature of your project that will give it an advantage over others; weaknesses refers to the disadvantages your project has that makes it vulnerable.

SWOT can be used to evaluate the external forces that threaten to impact your position. The question is: how will changes in externalities create both opportunities that enhance your strengths/position, or, diminish your strengths/position.

(A quick note on externalities ... these are changes that happen outside of you and your firm's control. Things like changes to consumer opinion and preferences, changes in tax or foreign policy, shifts in technology, industry regulations, surprise news events. This is stuff that you can anticipate but not necessarily control.)

Opportunities reflects changes in market dynamics brought on by shifts in externalities; threats are conditions that could harm your position should the externalities come to pass. 

It's a simple tool and it's been taught in business schools since the 1970's. It's not something you just conduct when putting together your business plan. It's something you constantly revisit for two facts will always hold constant:

• Your product/service will change over time;

• Externalities that shape the success of your product/service will change over time.

Change happens. And your technology strategy should adapt accordingly. In fact, we measure technology generations in about nine months; SWOT may be a tool you're using on a bi-annual or six-month basis to re-evaluate how changes influence your spending plan.

There's a good reason for this. Technology projects take a long time to implement. Over the implementation and adoption period, a SWOT analysis is a litmus test. A reality check. Is this still the right plan? Is it good to continue spending and strategic investment in this direction? Or is there a change - a shift - that's about to happen, that will influence adoption and use?

It's the middle of September 2014 and Apple just released the new iPhone6, capable of NFC (Near-Field Communication) and a new payment system called ApplePay. Over its introductory weekend, Apple has sold 10 million of their new phones - that's a record, even for Apple. 

Now use the SWOT. If your in the middle of implementing a technology solution for your company like POS (Point of Sale) systems that rely/depend on magnetic swipes found on the back of credit cards, you're already at a technological pivot. An externality will now start shaping consumer behavior and preferences to start using NFC instead of magswipes for credit card transitions. It also stands to reason that Samsung and Google will ramp-up Droid solutions like Google Wallet to complete.

So, a couple of questions for you - the small business owner - at this critical time:

1. How rapidly do you expect your consumer's adoption rates of this technology? How does that present an opportunity or threat to your business?

2. How could the early internal adoption of NFC improve your product/service's competitive position? What are the risks/consequences to your business for later adoption?

3. What are the potential security consequences? How would your employees need to be trained?

4. How could the shift from magswipe to NFC influence your brand and delight everyone?

Thinking like this, applying SWOT when there's an obvious change in externalities, is a strategic application of technology spending. It allows you to think about, project, anticipate, and respond constructively rather than react. How could you apply SWOT today, tomorrow, next week, next month, next quarter?

R