Take the STEP to digitally transform your business

Are you ready to transform your business and enter the ever-evolving digital world?

For many people, new technology feels a bit scary, especially when it’s an investment for your SME business. You know the benefits of going more digital, but maybe you’re a bit hesitant about it all. There is so much information out there that it can feel overwhelming, and you may not know where to start. Before you do anything, you want to make sure you have the right approach to digital transformation and that’s where this blog post can help!

When we help our customers with business IT consulting projects, we use our STEP framework to approach these discussions.

It’s of our own making, based on decades of experience having these conversations (including when we worked elsewhere, but don’t tell anyone that part).

STEP is one of those slightly contrived acronyms that businesses all love so much:

Strategy
The long-term plan, but also the purpose and the distinctiveness of your business. Why are you running the business you are running? What makes it unique?

Technology
The equipment you use to run your business. The most important tools in my job are my phone, my car, and my pack of multi-coloured felt pens.

Environment
The business environment, which may include the green and the built environment around it. It’s the culture of your business, the daily experience of being an employee, customer, or director of the business, and the practical issues which everyone has to deal with.

Process
The stuff you do. Most managers know about process, even if they know it’s something they should really get around to thinking about soon. Once you have a process, you can loop back to technology to make it happen.

Find out even more about what Nick has to say on our business IT consulting process by downloading our free e-guide.

Find out more

Nick Ellis

Customer Experience Manager

Follow Nick on LinkedIn

View all articles by Nick

• Beware bad processes lurking everywhere!
  Ever found yourself grumbling about how things are done at work? Maybe it’s that endless approval chain or the complicated way the simplest tasks are handled. If so, we feel you!
• Take the STEP to digitally transform your business
  For many people, new technology feels a bit scary, especially when it’s an investment for your SME business. You know the benefits of going more digital, but maybe you’re a bit hesitant about it all.
• SharePoint: Create you own sharing site
  We see a lot of companies that use Microsoft SharePoint for their internal file management and then a separate service. We have some good news – you don’t need to!
• How do we use Microsoft Power Apps at Select Technology?
  It’s easy for a technology company to say you should use a technology. But do they use it themselves? Well, we can say that yes we do use Microsoft Power Apps ourselves.
• Make life easier for your customers with technology
  Businesses are always trying to improve their customer service. But what about the Customer Experience? The past few decades have seen processes get smarter with customers demanding (and expecting) more, faster, with even better customer service.
• What messaging service to use and why its important
  In the modern world, connectivity is everything. Our ability to connect quickly to our colleagues, customers, suppliers and other partners underpins everything in business and it is important that we can do so quickly and with as little ‘friction’ as possible. The simplest way, and the one we are all most familiar with these days, is text messaging through a mobile app.
• Working (away) from home
  A few weeks ago I had to work from my Brother-in-Law’s house in Southport, Merseyside. It was a real test of the ‘work from anywhere’ ideal that we hear about these days.
• Microsoft Dynamics 365: Add some magic to your marketing
  The technology revolution that has taken place over the past year means customers are interacting with businesses online more than ever. Therefore, it is vital to ensure you have an edge over your competitors when it comes to customer experience.
• How Microsoft 365 changes your approach to business change
  Everywhere you look these days you see posts, articles and books about how you need to change your business. While for people who have spent a lifetime building a business that’s not always an easy message to hear, I think 2020 has showed that increased agility, productivity and mobility will be important. As we normalise life after COVID-19, or perhaps live permanently with it, the changes it forced upon us will have a long impact.

More Digital Transformation articles >