Every business has different needs. Understanding those needs is a major key to success.
Knowing where your business is at in its life cycle can give you some insight into what your business needs might be. It can also help you understand what is required to grow to the next level, what might be holding you back, and how to plan for the future. All important things to know if you want to keep growing and succeeding in your business.
To help you determine where your business is at in its life cycle, we’ve outlined the major life cycle milestones and what your technology needs likely are at that phase.
Start-up (sub $500,000 in revenue)
- Typically use shareware / free software
- G-mail, Google products or Office 365 for advanced security and scalability
- Small point solution software
- Focus is on revenue acquisition
Small business ($500,000 to $2,000,000)
- Business complexity increases
- Software solutions become more valuable / necessary
- Office 365 with full Office suite enables business richer B2B experience
- Need for CRM / ERP begins to emerge
- Typically, a point solution software architecture begins to form
- Has higher cost of ownership and will not scale long term
- Focus on revenue acquisition begins to be strained by increasing business complexity
Small business ($2,000,000 to $5,000,000)
- Likely need to document and re-engineer business processes to drive productivity
- Need single instance of data truth architecture
- Need security audits
- Infrastructure is likely consumer grade, not enterprise grade
- Should be planning to move toward a framework CRM / ERP solution
- Consolidating / shutting down point solution software
- Broader integration with partners
- Scaling the business begins to be a real challenge
medium business ($5,000,000 to $10,000,000)
- Significant growth is typical
- Single instance of data truth is critical
- Need for productivity improvement and cost management
- Business processes likely “spaghetti”
- Need security audits
- Infrastructure is likely consumer grade, not enterprise grade
- Business process knowledge is within the village square and key employee’s minds, not systematic
- Need to finalize solid business processes and software (CRM / ERP) before hitting the $10M range
- Critical to scaling
- Need to consolidate all point solution products
medium to large business ($10,000,000+)
- Need process documentation and re-engineering
- Need single instance of data truth architecture
- Need security audits
- Potential for CRM / ERP upgrade
- Potential for data management training
- Typically has IT limitations in understanding business needs for technology
ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTOR
David Reimer is the Principle of Reimer Consulting, a technology-based consulting firm. Measuring corporate strategies against IT capabilities and closing the resulting gap is a core skill set. Documenting and re-engineering business processes, as a precursor to sourcing and implementing CRM or ERP systems, is also a key service. We also provide software acquisition and deployment services.
As a strategic adviser, Reimer Consulting provides process advisory services to a wide range of organizations that are building a strong export portfolio.
Author: David Reimer
Interested in learning more from David Reimer? Check out the upcoming program, Scale Up Your Processes – The Key To Profitable Growth, launching January 2023 here!