Your small business is growing fast. Your technology needs are changing just as rapidly. But starting over with a totally new system isn’t an option – who can afford the downtime? IT consultant Josh Carroll says it’s like “needing to change a car tire, but not being able to afford to stop the car.”
A better solution is to replace components you’ve outgrown – such as software or a lower-end printer – and add them to the existing technology infrastructure. If you can do that without any hiccups, the integration has been “seamless.”
Josh Carroll, principal and COO of EndSight, a Berkeley, Calif., firm that manages other companies’ technology networks, recently got some firsthand experience with the challenge of seamless technology integration.
Two-year-old EndSight established its own in-bound call center in 2005 and staffed it with five employees. At first, calls trickled in from end users, but grew steadily, tripling in volume to 30-40 calls a day in the last year, Carroll says. Its employees and its phone system were “maxxed out,” mainly because the original phone system was never designed for call center use. The only option was to invest in new technology.
EndSight took a methodical approach to integrating its new phone technology – a five-step process that any small business owner can follow when integrating new hardware, software or specialized equipment:
1) Identify the problem
When EndSight saw its customer satisfaction, efficiency and employee satisfaction.*p>Copyright 2009 StartupNation, LLC
Click here to read more from StartupNation