This week, we’re asking, “What happens with my tech if my business starts growing?” We’ve seen it a million times: a small company tailors their technology system to run exactly what they need and nothing more. No extra capacity for more machines, no extra space for increased data storage, no room for infrastructure expansion short of a complete rebuild. And then they start to grow.
Now, by no means am I diminishing the excitement and success of growth. Growing small businesses are the backbone of our communities. Small businesses are the livelihood of families and the owners’ life’s work. Growth is always cause for celebration.
But then, reality sets in. You need to hire more employees. Those employees need computers. Those computers need internet and security and software and management. These new employees and machines have to be architected into your network. And if we consider recent trends, it could take weeks or months to even get new equipment. So now we have a situation where demand on your business has increased, but increased technical efficiency to match is vastly delayed and maybe even impossible in the context of your current system. That’s a problem.
For the sake of argument, I’m going to assume that everyone wants their business to grow and flourish and thrive. We certainly do. If that’s true, you should be planning for that growth. Don’t overlook your technology. Every aspect of your company has to have growth capacity—and not just capacity, but a plan. That’s why our Sterling Ideas Team sits down every few months and reviews our clients’ technology. We look at the age of their equipment, the capacity it has left, and evaluate just how much room to grow the company has on their current system. If it’s not enough, we proactively make changes and update their systems to allow for that growth. And our clients have grown because they have the room to do so.
We have seen businesses grow from 4 to 15 offices in the span of mere years. We have watched companies double the number of computers they use. We have replaced servers and switches not because they were old, but because they were almost at capacity. We haven’t just watched companies grow. We’ve supported them. We’ve partnered with them. We’ve played a part. If your company is growing, your tech needs to grow alongside it. Partner with us and let us help you grow. It’s what we do.