SmallBizResource Blog -- Productivity

How Does Your IT Compare?

Posted by Judy Mottl Friday, Oct 19, 2007, 06:57 AM ET

Want to know how your IT efforts, and achievements, measure up against other SMBs? Well you can find out with ease thanks to a new free tool.

CDW’s Small Business Technology Assessment Tool is a quick survey of how your IT projects and technology use. The tool is accessible by free registration as a member on ConduIT@CDW.

It lets small business owners and tech managers compare their companies on key aspects of IT strategy and management with how successful mid-size businesses report they were when they were smaller than 100 employees.

It compares users’ responses with a national population of successful mid-size businesses on key attributes such as: Size, longevity, growth rate, investment and key applications, owner involvement and knowledge of IT, as well as tech staffing and outsourcing strategies.

Users receive instant scores presented alongside national results of CDW’s Business Rearview Mirror Survey, which was first reported in August.

The survey, based on a July 2007 survey of 152 mid-size business leaders who have successfully grown their firms from small businesses, is designed to share lessons learned from their early growth with current small business owners.

According to the findings employee recruitment/retention and managing IT are top small-business challenges. Successful entrepreneurs responding selected recruiting/retention, followed by 38 percent selecting “managing IT to our best advantage.”

It seems that small businesses that view technology as a strategic or competitive investment tend to grow faster than their counterparts – 61 percent of those holding that view reported double-digit average annual growth over the past five years, compared to 43 percent of those who “spent just enough” to ensure employees can do their jobs.

Another interesting fact is that a business owner’s understanding of technology’s usefulness correlates positively to the company’s growth – 73 percent of those rating themselves “total geeks” reported double-digit average annual growth over the past five years, and 48 percent of them said their companies reached 100 employees within their first five years, compared to 33 percent of all survey respondents.

It seems that almost all small-business owners are very involved in IT decisions, but leaders of the highest-growth small businesses (greater than 20 percent average annual growth) are more likely to rely on others to manage the IT details; 49 percent of them had dedicated IT staff at the 100-employee milestone, compared to 24 percent of all responders.

Productivity