How to Make IT a Competitive Advantage

Your IT department should be a resource, not a necessary evil. It should be an asset, not a liability. If your IT department is nothing but another monthly expense, you are missing out on what could be a competitive advantage. Many people simply see IT as the people who fix their keyboards when coffee is spilled on them. That might be true, but IT can be much more.

Instead of viewing IT as a necessary evil, use them to promote your company’s security, brag about uptime, or for leverage as a financial advantage. Let’s take a look at just a few of the ways you can turn your IT department into a competitive advantage.

Internal Advantages

There are countless ways that you can use IT to gain a competitive advantage internally, and the results will trickle down to your customers. One way is through using the cloud. Whether this is simply storing files on the cloud, or using Virtual Private Servers the convenience and accuracy that the cloud offers will save your employees time. Not only that, but having your servers in the cloud will save your company office space and significantly decrease your cooling bill. All of these previously mentioned advantages lead to you saving money. Then, you can invest that money back into your company. All of these savings will drip down to your customers.

External Advantages

While the previously mentioned competitive advantage will eventually be evident to your customers, there are also advantages to great IT that are seen in much more obvious ways. If you sell a product, for example, having a fully-integrated inventory management system that has 100% uptime is something that your competitors may not have. This is something that your IT department would be a huge part of. If implemented correctly, the convenience of this competitive advantage would help you to obtain many more clients.

Relating to external advantages, there are financial advantages as well. Even simple things like having all forms, documents, and contracts electronically transferred can end up having a significant effect on the bottom line. It will save you time and money when it comes to printing, shipping, time, etc. – and it will further increase the customer experience, which translates into profit.

If you don’t think your IT department has time for things like this, consider working with an IT management company that can assist your IT department and allow them to focus on creating that competitive advantage.