Unless your organization has a well-defined new-tech procurement process in place, it’s likely that too often your IT department finds out about new tech after the contract has been signed. But because your IT team has both a unique perspective and numerous key roles in the execution of a tech purchase, it’s worth inviting them into the technology evaluation process before you’ve signed on the dotted line.
Below are a few often overlooked ways your IT team can help you achieve greater success before and after you select a new tech provider.
They Can Advocate for Your Purchase
As experts in technology and data, they will be able to see the big-picture benefits of the new tech. Whether this means helping your organization move away from your last remaining paper processes or the ability to achieve digital transformation through integration and consolidation of your enterprise systems, your IT team can help you get this technology purchase over the approval finish line.
From their unique vantage point, they can help advocate to management and other departments on behalf of your purchase. Getting their stamp of approval in advance may help make your case for any size technology purchase.
They Can See into the Blind Spots
Without the expert input from a member of your IT team, success can be hampered post-purchase from a few angles. Getting ITs’ input during evaluation can prevent the following unexpected issues from arising during implementation:
- Tech redundancy. Your IT team has insight into the tech being used across departments and the organization. If another department has a similar solution already, they will know and can prevent this coming to light later at a less opportune time. Their input can save you money and extra work. They can also help evaluate whether your new solution is better than the current solution and can act as change agents by getting other departments on board with the potential new vendor.
- Assumptions around features, data, integration or configurability. It happens to everyone. You’ve spent weeks on your due diligence. You’ve asked a ton of questions. You sign the contract and it’s only during implementation that you realize that what you thought was either easy or included at your price point may not actually be so. Having an IT person involved early can help unearth any assumptions, miscommunications and the like about anything more technical that may come back to bite you later. Bringing in the expert is especially important when it comes to something as technical as integration or configuration, both of which, if not created well, can increase the cost or time to value of your tech purchase.
- Ensure the security of your sensitive data. By bringing IT into the process at the evaluation stage, you can leverage their expertise to protect your vehicles, business and your customer data from solutions that could lead to security vulnerabilities.
They Can Facilitate Greater Success
Depending on the tech you’re purchasing, the IT team will, on some level, be executors and admins of the technology. Asking them to buy in during the decision-making process will help move your project along faster, as it will be a bigger priority for them as well. And their buy-in may also help speed up integration, configuration and rollout.
And after buy-in, they will become experts and may help you uncover new ways to use the technology either in your department, across the organization or in reporting success and metrics to your executive leadership team.
In the end, having a representative from IT on your evaluation team can better help you achieve your ultimate goals with any tech you’re onboarding.
One of the most important purchase decisions may be your connected vehicle and asset operations platform. If you’ll be evaluating a new solution in the next three to 12 months, share this IT Managers Guide to Connected Operations with your IT partner to help them understand:
- What a modern connected vehicle and asset operations solution should look like
- How a modern solution breaks down data siloes so that you can achieve operational efficiency, data-driven insights and, ultimately, increased profit
- The buyer’s checklist for operational managers (on page 11)
- Real-life examples from IntelliShift clients who have been able to achieve connected operations
Download this guide to share and get the conversation started.
