Over the past few years I’ve moved from enterprise development for big international companies to working with the *little guy*, that’s the small to medium enterprise market in business parlance. There’s a number of things I’ve noticed when developing solutions within that sector. I’ve put some of them into this list.

1. DO NOT get it done by a friend or their offspring.

The days of someones kid or their best friend being a whizzkid at computers are gone, if they ever existed. Yes they may be brilliant and may even be studying computer science or web design but, at the end of the day, your business is more than a few lines of work experience to be added to a new graduate’s resume.

Students, family members and even the neighbour who works in I.T. do not have the resources to develop a polished, finished, tested system. Companies do. When you’re starting up a business its important to save money but a savvy computer or web design company will realize the value of repeat business – if you’re on a budget then look for a company that will work to fit in with it.

2. DO talk to that friend though.

I don’t want to dismiss your neighbour (or whoever) who works in I.T. They have a level of expertise that you don’t; talk to them about your needs, they may be able to give you a more unbiased opinion than a sales person trying to make commission.

3. DO NOT design your own website.

The temptation to put a website together yourself may be too great to resist. Personally, I believe this is because the web is so young and it was only a decade ago that with a smattering of HTML code you could have a website up and running in no time. But here’s a number things to consider now in 2010:

1. Not all browsers are created equal. Just because it looks good in Internet Explorer doesn’t mean it will look good in a previous version of Internet Explorer, or FireFox, or Google Chrome, or Safari. That’s the lions share of the browser market right there – you have to look good in all of these. Experienced web designers will know how to do this. Do you?
2. Search engine optimisation – that’s SEO if you’ve been researching online. Again, web design agencies will have an in-house expert or will outsource to one they know and trust. Do you know how to optimise your site? Do you have the time to learn?
3. Professional designers versus you. Look at your competitors’ sites. Can you do that good a job? If not, that’s a win for them if you try. If they look like they’ve done it themselves then that’s a win for you – go spend a little money.

I could write a list of 25 reasons not to design your own website and wouldn’t have begun to even scratch the surface of why it’s a bad idea.

4. DO get all your marketing material sorted from the start.

I’m talking brochures, business cards, company logos on invoices, and those funny squishy animal things you give out at exhibitions that are all part of your marketing material. These need to project a professional, unified image. Does a downloaded website template fit with this? When you’re choosing these materials don’t forget about your website – trying to make a website fit after you’ve spent money on branding can be difficult and expensive.

5. DO invest in I.T.

This post was born of this thread on http://www.boards.ie (I’m Irish and hang out on Irish sites). It’s about point of sale (POS) systems so I’ll use that as an example. You’re going into retail selling widgets and you pay $1,600 for a POS system developed by *somebody* you know who works in I.T. Not going with an expensive solution from a specialist company saves you $6,000. There’s a Christmas rush on widgets, you’ve 12 customers standing in line, you’re ringing up a sale and suddenly you get the error message ‘ActiveX cannot create component’. The *developer* is at a sister’s wedding that day. Do you know how to fix it? Time passes and customers waiting to pay start putting back their widgets and walking out.

Another scenario: You get covered in the national media as an up-and-coming company and your website goes down because it can’t handle the sudden number of visits. That is something that could have been orchestrated with your web agency in advance. The kid next-door can’t do that.

A specialist company has the experience to deal with issues as they arise. If a POS solution costs $7,600 and the company have 2 thousand installs well they’ve over 15 million dollars worth of installs. That buys an awful lot of Getting It Right. Two thousand customers speaks of lot of a company.

6. DO invest in technical support.

Pay the extra for technical support. Decide how important a system is to you; if it’s a retail website selling golf equipment then the website IS your business. Good technical support will be worth every penny. If you’ve a laptop, what do you use it for? Is it the end of month accounts or something that has to be done everyday? If it’s end of month then next day support will probably do, if it’s everyday then same day support is what you need. Same thing applies to all your technology. Which leads me to point 7.

7. DO get a service level agreement.

A service level agreement is a contract that outlines what exactly you’re entitled to and what you can expect from the I.T. services you are purchasing, from network support through to website maintenance.

8. DO look at initial saving Vs the long term impact.

Probably the reason most new business owners do some of the ‘do nots’ on this list is to save money. But an initial investment (read expense) into quality I.T. will save you money in the long run. Whatever kind of business you’re running, you’ll be using I.T. to run it.

To sum up I guess what I’m saying is don’t cut corners for the sake of saving money. Just as the shortest route isn’t always the quickest, the cheapest route isn’t always going to save you the most money. You don’t have to break the bank but do spend where you need to.

Tags: Business

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