Tony Ciotti

Why would I write about methodology in a technology blog? In many cases, technology is not your problem - it’s methodology, or should I say a lack of methodology, that is really causing you the problem.

Technology is used throughout a business and in each area there is a standard methodology or a body of practices, procedures, and rules used by those who work in that particular discipline.  This discipline could be sales, marketing, accounts payable, accounts receivable, cash management, order processing, inventory control, human resources, business intelligence and the list goes on and on.

Ideally, you want to discover and use what is referred to as best practices for that discipline or field.  Many of you might be saying - Duh!  Yeah, it might sound like common sense - actually, it probably is common sense, but I will tell you that I have seen my fair share of companies, from small businesses to Fortune 100 companies that ignored this common sense.

For example, I see many companies rush out and buy software to create scorecards and dashboards.  Yet, they don’t have a methodology on which to utilize those scorecards.  Sure, they end up with pretty web pages with traffic lights and gauges as the following scorecard illustrates.

But what do the red, yellow, green colors really signify?  What should be done when the colors change?  What should be done if the colors don’t change?  Is there a cause-effect relationship between two or more traffic lights?  What is that relationship?

If a methodology such as Balanced Scorecard was adopted prior to implementing the scorecard project, one would be in a much better position to answer the above questions.

Similarly, let’s say a company decided to implement a new CRM (Customer Relationship Management) system.  There are several CRM systems on the market that have best practices built into them.  Companies that don’t necessarily have a strong methodology in place might consider purchasing a CRM system with the intention of implementing its proven practices.  There is nothing wrong with that, however if the methodology employed by the CRM is vastly different from the methodology employed by your company, you will benefit by first understanding the methodology and training your workers on it, prior to implementing the new technology.  Otherwise you will most likely end up with too much change and a failed deployment.

Technology can be a powerful business differentiator especially when it is powering a best-of-breed methodology.  I think you will find the time invested in understanding the methodology and training your users on it will give you a much higher ROI on your technology investment.

In future posts, I will share more examples of methodologies and have some of my business associates share their best-of-breed practices in various fields.  Let me know if there are certain fields that are of interest so we can cover those.

I don’t know about you, but the idea of blogging has been nagging me for years. I’ve resisted the urge each time. I finally decided to take a deep look at it and, since you are looking at the blog, I obviously decided to start.

In my consulting business and during interactions with entrepreneurs, business owners and executives, I find that there is a lot of confusion, anxiety and at times disdain for technology.

Some companies have invested a lot of money in technology to only be disappointed in the end when it doesn’t do what they wanted it to do. Other companies have invested money in technology only to leave it on the shelf. There is a lot of underutilized technology out there. Maybe we can uncover some of this value and raise the ROI on existing technology investments.

Some of you reading this blog know me, but others probably have no clue who I am. To add some context to this post, I will share a bit of my background. I put myself through college as a stockbroker at a major discount brokerage firm. The interesting thing is that I got that job, not because I wanted to be a stockbroker, but because I was an active trader and loved the concept of having my own trading terminal on my desk, receiving an employee discount on my commissions and oh, the paycheck? Yeah, that was a nice bonus on top of the perks. After college, I started an accounting firm, which morphed into a CFO-for-hire firm, which morphed into a boutique mergers and acquisitions firm.

Smelling the foul odor of the dotcom era, years before the bubble burst, I decided it was time to get out of corporate finance and morphed my company once again, this time into a technology consulting firm. With my background as an entrepreneur and financial consultant, my firm was able to bring a very different perspective to our technology consulting and development projects.

Although corporate finance runs through my veins, I must say that the technologies for optimizing the entire sales and marketing funnel are highly interesting to me. They are actually currently a passion for me. Especially in today’s economy where companies with a well tested, monitored and optimized sales and marketing funnel can pick up market share while their competitors sit on the sidelines waiting for the economy to improve. I am currently working on some exciting developments in this area and hope to share them with my readers soon. Ok, enough about me - you can always click on the About and Consulting links if you want more.

What I hope you will get out of this blog is a different perspective on technology and how it can be used to improve individual productivity as well as companywide performance. I will use traditional blog posts, but will also incorporate video blog posts to help better illustrate concepts.

What I hope to get out this blog is to strengthen old relationships and build new relationships with entrepreneurs, business owners, executives, fellow consultants and other bloggers. Since technology is only helpful when it is correctly implemented, my hope for this blog is to help current projects and foster new projects. Let’s be blunt - blogging is a lot of work and a big commitment, so my ultimate intention is to gain new business.

I would like this blog to be helpful to the readers, so I encourage comments and other feedback. I know there will be varying opinions and viewpoints as different issues are discussed. I encourage the varying viewpoints to be shared, because we can all learn something new and benefit from looking at things in different ways.

Some of the areas that I am interested in are business intelligence, business performance management, enterprise content management, enterprise information management and … well, I think you probably get the idea.  I like technology that allows companies to manage the mountains of data and information, turning it into actionable insight.

I look forward to your comments and input.