The Challenge

I'm sure that there are thousands of organizations out there that share the “The Challenge”. IT groups, application service providers, independent software vendors teams of people with a common set of goals that leverage computer technology to get the job done. Their “Challenge” is to keep up with technology and still deliver the products and services that their customers and business depend on.

These are small organizations. These teams don't have accesses to the resources of a large company with a revenue stream that is large enough that even a small percentage of the total revenue produces a funding level that meets the basic needs of the team. Don't get me wrong, large organizations have their own types of budgetary problems, but small companies have a disadvantage that results from their small revenue stream.

This funding issue results in forced economies in at least three areas. The first and most obvious is people. Not only is the total number of people provided by the business to meet the goals lower, but because of that people have to wear many hats. In some ways this leads to flexibility and nimbleness, which is an asset in any organization, but because individuals are expected to be able to do many diverse things, their skills and knowledge can not be as high in any one area. In a larger team, people can specialize and the company ends up getting more bang for it's buck. These smaller team's efforts become fragmented it is harder to get projects complete on a predictable schedule.

The second major effect is the slower pace at which new technology is adopted. This is a byproduct of the staffing issue, but is also a primary issue in that hardware has to last longer, training budgets are smaller and business is often managed in a more frugal way. Being thrifty is a good thing, but it induces inefficiency and prevents teams from adopting new technologies that would save time and money just because of the up-font cost.

The third and hardest factor to recognize and quantify is the higher risk attributed to the adoption of new technologies due to the unknowns and the higher portion of the total budget that new technology adoption would require in these small organizations. A new server operating system or development platform may be tested and proved in a large organization often has to go quickly into production in a smaller organization just because the cost of the change is a higher percentage of the total budget. Often, these new technologies are avoided in the small organization until there is literally no choice. Then eventually some situation will arise that forces the issue. For example the old server is down or a customer demands a new interface built on the latest development platform.

One of the primary goals of SilverBackGeek.com is to help organizations understand these issues and find short cuts and efficiencies to implementing new technology to keep their customers, business and technical workers satisfied.

I hope that this blog will be of help to you.

The SilverBackGeek