Tech Debt 2.0™: How to Future Proof Your Small Business and Improve Your Tech Bottom Line

By Michael C. Fillios

The importance of small and mid-sized business (SMBs) has never been greater. SMBs keep the American melting pot bubbling away, nourishing hopes, dreams and a healthy economy. Unfortunately, technical debt can threaten their long-term viability and business objectives, potentially threatening their survival.

A well-known term in the IT world, technical debt historically accrues when long-term scalability and performance is sacrificed for a short-term goal, such as speed to launch. The rapid evolution of technology and the particular IT challenges of SMBs requires an evolution of the term "technical debt."

As defined by author Michael C. Fillios, Tech Debt 2.0TM debt now affects the entire business, including attracting talent, mergers and acquisitions, competition in the marketplace, cyber security, and more. Carrying too much, or mismanaging it, can spell serious consequences, or even tech bankruptcy.

Tech Debt 2.0TM: How to Future Proof Your Small Business and Improve Your Tech Bottom Line helps SMBs understand and manage their technical debt. In Tech Debt 2.0TM, Fillios downloads his more than 25 years of business, finance an IT leadership experience into invaluable insights and "key tech-aways," that will help SMBs to:
- Diagnose and measure your tech debt 2.0 score
- Improve your tech bottom line
- Reduce your risk of tech bankruptcy
- Future proof your business

Treating technology investment as a necessary evil and passively managing your technical debt is a sure-fire way for SMBs to threaten their existence. Don't miss out on the opportunity to leverage these essential tools and start creating tech equity for your SMB to survive and thrive in the new tech landscape!

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Mar 31, 2020
• ISBN: 9781098306342

Book preview

Preface

The number one benefit of information technology is that it empowers people to do what they want to do. It lets people be creative. It lets people be productive. It lets people learn things they didn’t think they could learn before, and so in a sense it is all about potential.

—Steve Ballmer

To live in the current tech state of the union is to live in a constant state of transition and evolution. Before we even begin to understand and adapt to the latest iteration of software on our phones, cars, or streaming services, they’ve become last year’s models. Virtually obsolete. The same holds true in the corporate world. While technology affects nearly every aspect of our lives; within business it often has a great, and sometimes poorly understood or unintended, impact. Innovation is a runaway train we are always trying to catch, particularly those of us leading small to mid-sized businesses (SMBs).

But you picked up this book, so you must be intrigued about finding a way to outrun that runaway tech train or, at least a way to grab on and ride it. Regardless of the specific concern or problems that drew you to these pages, you are propelled by the potential to do better for your customers, your staff and your company. You want to manage your technology in a smart way and avail yourself of new ideas and strategies that will future proof your business. SMBs built this country and continue to fuel our economy. We need SMBs to be strong to keep our economy strong. A key aspect of maintaining SMB well being is recognizing and managing the financial ramifications of their technology management, the technomics.

What is technomics? It’s the intersection of economics and technology. Individuals and businesses accumulate financial liabilities and assets. They take on debt, whether it’s a mortgage or a car lease with balloon payments, and they accrue assets, investing in property and growing their wealth with compound interest. The financial balance sheet is analogous to the technical balance sheet that organizations must tally. And technology management is as important as financial management.

Just as taking on too much or ill-advised financial debt can be ruinous personally and professionally, accumulating Tech Debt 2.0™ without a clear plan or proper management can be a fatal blow to businesses. Failure to stay on top of technomics presents big problems for large, established companies. But, you don’t have to be Blockbuster to accrue Tech Debt 2.0™ and lose out to the Netflix equivalent for your business. Small companies have different challenges and benefits when it comes to managing evolving technology and failure to pay attention and manage technology judiciously cannot only cause Tech Debt 2.0™ but existential crisis.

Technical debt is something with which IT folks are well acquainted, but it is not nearly as familiar to the general business world. The traditional definition of technical debt is rushing software to market with known flaws with the plan of fixing it later. Not unlike the ways in which high-rate credit card debt threatens a consumer’s livelihood or running a deficit threatens a country’s ability to lead and innovate, or overwhelming student loans cripple graduates’ earning power, technical debt can be a sneaky and potent enemy. It can run a company aground and cause tech, and even actual, bankruptcy.

Think for a moment back to the hit 1980s arcade favorite, Pac-Man. Great fun. Your spunky yellow avatar chomps along, quickly rising through the first few levels, evading ghosts and munching power pellets. As the game advances, however, the ghosts get more savvy and aggressive, changing their behaviors and patterns. Potential danger lurks around every corner. But you’re not focused on that. Instead you are consumed with gobbling up the juicy extra-point fruit. You are fully absorbed in the quest to tally up points. That is, until the ghosts eat you for dinner.

The evolution of technology over the past three decades, led by migration from mainframe to client server, the creation of the Internet, the very real threats to cybersecurity, and the ubiquity of the cloud, has raised the stakes higher than ever. Like technology itself, technical debt has grown smarter, stealthier, and more sinister. Enter Tech Debt 2.0™. For an SMB, ill-managed Tech Debt 2.0™ can mean Game Over.   

In these pages, I hope to download my more than 25 years of IT and finance knowledge along with my leadership expertise and strategies to you, the leaders of small and mid-size businesses, aka the C-Suite. What is this book not? It’s not a scaled-back version of what many IT consultancies offer larger clients because managing IT and Tech Debt 2.0™ is not one-size-fits-all. And my company, IT Ally, recognizes small businesses for what they are, the backbone of our economy. We zero in on their unique needs. We create and provide enterprise-level capabilities and talent, continuously adding to our offerings—from assessment and strategy to staffing and solutions.

As part of my research, I have engaged with dozens of expert leaders, across the country and in numerous industries to illuminate how Tech Debt 2.0™ impacts their businesses and how they have dealt with it, sometimes successfully and sometimes not. My interactions with these talented colleagues reveal the problem from the diverse perspectives of IT and cybersecurity and their importance to enable growth, improve customer experiences, and to remain relevant in the digital economy.

In the following chapters, I will explain why serving SMBs is my personal mission. I will outline your distinct IT challenges, advantages and root causes of Tech Debt 2.0™. I will explain Tech Debt 2.0™, and the myriad ways it affects organizations. And, I will present real world solutions for its management, and IT in general, within your company—so you can level the playing field with larger companies, attract the best talent, and succeed.

When I founded my company, IT Ally, I wanted a name that would convey the notion of partnership to my clients so that they knew we were on their side. I wanted them to know that we are not only advising them on their challenging IT and cybersecurity needs, but also supporting their success as SMBs.  I’m rooting for and working for you, SMBs. We need you to survive and thrive and continue to be the engine that fuels our economy. My hope is that this book will help raise awareness about the importance of managing Tech Debt 2.0™ while at the same time igniting a conversation that inspires business and IT leaders to collaborate and engage