Want “More Tech” to assist your Role? Here is how to get it…
by Jeanavive Janssen aka the NetworkGirl
Are you an employee who wants “More Tech” to support your Role? Here are a few tips on how you can effect change as an employee or perhaps you are an outside influence with a Tech product/SAAS you want to have championed?…the stakeholders aren’t always the same.
Who are the stakeholders in the Tech Decisions? What do you need to know to Champion the Tech you want?… (this, e.g., Is for SAAS that effects the sales team)
- The CEO – needs the big picture info if a large company and not a user.
- Who is in charge of the Budget? Finance/Accounting? They will need to know; what are the costs, initiation fees, monthly fees/user fees, cancellations terms/costs….
- The sales staff who will use the software – how does it help them?
- What other teams may be affected by implementation? Eg. Marketing?
- The VP of Sales – They will need to know; what kind of reporting or service does it offer them to increase productivity and support of their teams?
- Who else will need reporting or access?
- Who will do the training/implementation – is it you?
- Does your company have a division that does the training?
- Do you have an IT* department that can do training?
- If not, who is a stakeholder prepared to learn and train? Is it you?
- How much time is genuinely needed to implement? Who can be affected if the implementation is delayed or the team doesn’t learn it quick enough?
- Do you know what IT* means? (if not, we may need to take a big step back, and the first questions should be are you Tech-Savvy?..if, yes, keep reading)
- Do you have an in-house IT department? Are they employees or contractors?
- Are they too busy fixing printers?
- Are they the type to embrace more work?
- Or are they early adopters and want to be ahead of the curve in Tech?
- They will need to know, quality assurance issues, debugging, scalability, programming language security, and so much more – your Tech will need to talk to their Tech.
If you do have an IT department you will need to get to know how they function before you align the users, the IT can be your ally or hold up the process if there is a lot of work on their end to launch the new SAAS.
Take a walk to their department one day (are they even onsite?). Don’t engage; just investigate …don’t make any sudden movements and scare them off.
If it is a small department or a contractor, they may not have the time to embrace ideas that have not been handed down by C-Level. If it is an in-house IT department with tech adopters, they may be more inclined to assist. Do not try to work this change thru IT first, but be aware of how it affects them in the long run when it does get past down from the top, they could be the final cross-check as the experts in their field and they could “stone-wall” it. Most often, companies selling SAAS will work the IT department first, but there still has to be a real good reason for them to care to make a change; and that is where the user’s buy-in is essential.
If you don’t have an IT department and if the SAAS guarantees plug and play (with a certain amount of internet bandwidth to users), you may find that aligning the users and getting their buy-in influence over the CEO for the Tech change may be a more straightforward process.
If you are the Champion of the Tech, align yourself with a good partner on the Tech side before you go in the ring, they need to make it easy for you to understand the big picture, the bottom-line, and ROI. If you are not getting what you need from your assigned salesperson at the company – not just an “order taker,” ask for them to supply additional people who may be able to break it down in a different way so that you understand completely what you are championing. Also, are they prepared to take on the IT Dept.? with your groundwork, you will be able to provide insight into how they function.
What SAAS do you want to Champion?
- Admins or Office Managers, Check-out OfficeNinjas http://officeninjas.com/ to find more Apps/Tech/SAAS that may be good for your office: http://officeninjas.com/category/tech-tools/
- Join the Executive Assistants Organization and learn more about #tech and how to effect change: http://www.executiveassistantsorganization.com/
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