The strength of your technology architecture plays a critical role in your business’ potential for success. It doesn’t necessarily matter if you’re dedicated to providing your customers with reliable service and quality products. In the digital age, your business can’t realize its full potential if you don’t have the tech stack necessary to not only support your current operations, but also to ensure efficient growth.
It’s wise to consult with technology architecture specialists when planning your tech stack. If technology architecture isn’t among your areas of expertise, you’ll benefit substantially from coordinating with experts who can help you better understand how to improve your business’ tech infrastructure.
In general, though, there are also certain essential factors you can consider when planning your technology architecture. They include the following:
Future Needs
This is an essential point. Too often, business owners overlook it. As a result, their businesses typically won’t grow as efficiently as they otherwise could.
You can’t merely focus on your current needs when making tech stack decisions. You also need to assess your future goals. By considering your business’ future needs, you’ll be more likely to equip yourself with a technology architecture system that allows you to tackle new projects as soon as they arise.
On the other hand, if you don’t account for future plans, you’ll waste time and money later trying to rework your technology architecture at the last minute.
Employee Insights
As a business owner, unless your business is very small, it’s unlikely you’re directly involved in all tasks your employees perform on a day-to-day basis. That’s not only acceptable, it’s preferable. Your role is to see the “big picture” and set general goals. Individual departments and employees are responsible for the finer details.
However, while it’s important not to be a micromanager, not performing the same regular tasks as your employees perform could naturally prevent you from understanding their tech needs.
Don’t assume you thoroughly understand what qualities your technology architecture needs to possess to support your workforce. Instead, discuss this topic with managers and consider distributing employee polls asking for suggestions. Odds are good your lower-level team members can identify technology architecture needs that you may not have considered.
Allowing others to offer their ideas can also have a positive impact on company culture and retention. Research indicates employees are more likely to be engaged if they feel their voices are heard and appreciated. When you consider that most workers aren’t engaged, taking the easy step of asking your employees for tech stack suggestions is a simple but effective way to give your business a competitive edge.
Customer-Facing Factors
You shouldn’t exclusively assess your workforce’s needs when making plans to improve your technology architecture. You also need to consider how the right tech stack will help you attract and maintain customers.
This involves accounting for many factors. You must develop target personas, prioritize general customer research, and even consider how logo and branding will impact your business’ relationship with customers.
Don’t let these tasks overwhelm you! While there are many factors to review when making customer-centric technology architecture decisions, again, you can always consult with specialists to simplify what may otherwise seem to be a massive task.
Team Knowledge
Soliciting feedback from your employees won’t just help you have a greater appreciation for the range of technologies they may need to maximize productivity and innovation. It can also help you learn about your workforce’s general skills and capabilities.
Some elements of your tech stack, such as basic mobile apps, may be intuitive enough for any employee to use comfortably. However, there’s also a good chance some of your team members will need to leverage elements of your technology architecture that require a certain degree of expertise and knowledge to take full advantage of.
You want to know what types of programming languages, software, and other tech stack elements your IT team and developers are most familiar with. This is key to choosing tools and resources that deliver genuine value to your team.
Custom Tools vs. Savings
This aspect of planning technology architecture is somewhat tricky. You need to strike a delicate balance between staying in your budget and ensuring you’re not making unreasonable technology architecture compromises.
For example, when selecting tech stack resources and tools, some business owners attempt to save money by choosing “ready-made” tools instead of custom options.
In some instances, this may be acceptable. However, there are also potential scenarios in which choosing the less expensive option will actually be more costly over time, as a custom tool might have been better suited to your long-term needs. Yes, you could switch to a custom tool later if you realize doing so is necessary, but this will be expensive. Acquainting team members with a new custom tool will also use up a lot of time.
This point once again highlights the value of discussing these topics thoroughly with your IT team, developers, managers, and technology architecture consultants. It’s unrealistic to expect you to fully understand when it’s best to spend more on a custom tech stack element and when you can justify saving money by equipping your business with an existing tool. Instead, seek feedback from others when facing these decisions. You’re much more likely to make the right choices for your business when multiple stakeholders and specialists have weighed in.
Most importantly, don’t underestimate the value of taking the time to plan your technology architecture thoroughly. Remember, your business can’t thrive with an inadequate tech stack. These tips will help you plan one that delivers maximum value.
