Unless you’re still using a rotary phone and fax machine, it’s a fair assumption that your business utilizes some form of new technology. But do you know how exactly your business uses new technologies?

And do you know which technologies you should adopt next to remain relevant? If keeping up with the latest technology trends scares you, or if even thinking about adopting new technologies makes you break out in hives, this blog post is for you.

Fortunately, adapting new technologies doesn’t have to be as painful as getting an injection directly into your amygdala (that would hurt).

With the right preparation and planning, adopting new technologies can instead feel like getting a soothing spa treatment (with no risk of brain damage).

Define Your Technology Strategy

Before you can decide to adopt new technologies, you must first decide on a strategic plan for your business’s technology needs. You should know exactly what kind of technologies your business needs to operate, why those technologies are necessary, and what role they will play in the company.

To start this process, you can ask yourself a few questions: Why do you have any technology systems in place at all? What business reason do they serve? What kind of technologies do you need to run your business? And what systems do you have in place?

By answering these questions, you will be better able to dictate the technology strategy for your business. You will also be in a better position to plan for the adoption of new technologies.

Identify the Technologies You Should Adopt

Now that you know what technologies your business currently relies on, you can start identifying the technologies you should adopt next. You can do this by determining the current gaps in your business’s technology infrastructure.

With every new technology adoption, you should consider how it will help address a specific business need, problem, or gap. So before you think about what cool technology you want to adopt, first think about what business needs the new technology will solve.

For example, if your team relies on email and in-person meetings as the main communication tools, adopting a knowledge management platform could be a good idea. By adopting a knowledge management platform, you can organize and archive company knowledge in a centralized location and make it easily accessible to all team members.

This will help address the problem of ineffective communication and knowledge sharing across your company.

Estimate the Costs of Adopting New Technologies

Let’s be honest: New technologies are expensive. And because adopting new technologies can be a huge investment, you should carefully consider the financial impact of each new technology.

There are two major costs to consider when adopting new technologies: direct costs and opportunity costs. Direct costs are the expenses you will incur to implement a specific technology. They include installation fees, setup costs, ongoing maintenance fees, and other one-time expenses necessary for a technology to function in your business.

Direct costs can also include training costs if the new technology requires special knowledge to operate. The opportunity cost is the potential loss in value you incur by not investing those resources in a different technology.

For example, if you choose to invest in adopting a new software tool, you could lose out on investing in a different technology that may have a higher return on investment (ROI).

Draft a Technology Roadmap

Once you’ve identified the technologies, you should adopt, estimated their costs, and determined their benefits to your business. You can start drafting a technology roadmap. A technology roadmap is a strategic plan that outlines the adoption schedule for new technologies in your business.

A roadmap can help you avoid making rash technology adoption decisions. It can also help you prioritize the new technologies you should adopt based on their benefits to your business.

By drafting a roadmap, you can ensure that you are adopting the right technologies for your business, in the right way, at the right time. And you can avoid the danger of adopting too many or too few technologies.

When Should You Adopt?

Before you adopt any new technologies, you should ask yourself, “when is the best time to adopt?” You want to make sure that you are adopting the right technologies for the right reasons at the right time.

You don’t want to adopt new technologies just for the sake of adopting new technologies. However, you don’t want to adopt too early, but you also don’t want to adopt too late. You also don’t want to adopt too frequently.

If you adopt new technologies too early, you could be investing in technologies that are still immature and may not be fully developed. This will result in high maintenance costs and low ROI.

If you adopt new technologies too late, you could be missing out on game-changing technologies. If you adopt new technologies too frequently, you will incur unnecessary costs and risks by adopting technologies that are not fully mature.

Bottom line

The adoption of new technologies is inevitable. This doesn’t mean that you have to jump on every new technology bandwagon as soon as it arrives. Rather, it means that you should strategically plan for and adopt new technologies at the right time.