One of the most frustrating things for me when I meet with my prospective partners who are not the decision makers is when we both know we have a really good fit, but are met with pushback from upper management or the executive team. If your users are bogged down with outdated systems, are having issues with network connectivity or lack the appropriate security and strategy within your organization, but are having trouble getting the executives on board with the investment, here are a few ways to convince your executive team to update your technology.
Use the bottom line impact argument.
Executives speak in terms of bottom line impact. If you’re seeing inefficiencies that are impacting employee productivity and causing workflow inefficiencies, you need to document this. Take time to survey your employees in order to understand exactly how much time they’re wasting with poor technology. You’ll want to document downtime, support ticket time, issue resolution struggles and any other problems that are impacting productivity. Translate this directly to dollars by breaking down the average cost per minute to the organization and multiplying that over a year’s time. The number will likely be staggering and in the thousands – which will grab their attention immediately if you talk about costs and finding areas to save.
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Use the employee turnover argument.
It’s no secret that unhappy employees don’t stick around in an organization. If this is something that your executives are trying to eliminate, you’ll want to speak to how technology impacts employee happiness. This article is a great help for insight into unlocking employee happiness with regard to technology. If you’re still having trouble convincing them, try this infographic, which outlines the importance of employee satisfaction and the impact to the bottom line. Employee turnover is costly. This is a great argument for updating technology.
Use the loss of clients argument.
If you’re still struggling to make them understand, use this statistic: 9 out of 10 consumers said they would consider taking business elsewhere rather than work with a company that uses outdated technology. The implications of this statistic are huge. It tells you that if you don’t take the time to update your technology, it could not only have an impact on how your customers and client perceive you, but it could cause you to lose their business.
Executives like to speak in terms of impact to the bottom line. It’s not that they only care about money – it’s just that it’s a number one struggle for them. While you may be wondering if your executive team and management will ever get on board with updating technology, remember that it’s all a matter of perspective. Get out of the granular issues and start talking big picture and you’re bound to make some progress.
