I know it is almost a cliché, but that is the reality: technology has become ubiquitous in life and business. And that’s a good thing. With every new aspect of our society and activities that are affected by technology, we improve how we live, work or have fun except when used for darker, malicious purposes. But I won’t talk about that. I am an eternal optimist, and I believe technology will help us cross the bridge of belligerence and march into the new era of harmony and well-being.

One of the marvels of technology – as far as I am concerned – is that it lowers the entry cost of newcomers to business and allows everyone an almost equal playing field, much more than anything else. Small players can now fight better in the same marketplace segments as the big enterprises. Any technology-apt person can take a novel idea and build remarkable businesses that become overnight successes at an unprecedented pace.

But I think the best way to describe the new technology business world is “transformative.” Technology has evolved to support, accelerate and transform the way we live, work and do business – by making almost everything better, faster, more resilient and easier.

From how we broadcast our marketing message to how we automate the buyer’s journey through our funnels and how we process lead conversion to invoicing and customer care and support, most of our processes are technology-assisted, if not technology-driven.

The onset of mobile technology has brought innovation and automation so profound it sometimes is difficult to grasp – such is the massive complexity and variety of possibilities.

Why do so many small and large businesses then struggle to adopt technology on a larger scale? What makes technology so difficult to understand and implement that we hear about many delayed, over-budget or failed technology projects?

I believe there is a combination of factors that hold us back when we look at implementing more technology in our businesses:

• Budget – or lack of it thereof, as we have to admit, technology projects can be expensive.
• Knowledge – and by that, I mean specific knowledge that allows business processes to begin to rely on technology efficiently
• Human resources – despite a market flooded with skilled programmers, digital marketers and others, it isn’t easy to find people to help.
• Strategy shortcomings – businesses still see technology as a collection of tools they can use for specific tasks, not as a fundamental layer traversing all areas of activity.

We hear trendy expressions, such as “cloud-first” or “digital-first”. Still, they’re usually just part of a pitch for sales and disregard the fundamental need to understand how the digital tools we can use can have a positive (or negative) impact on our businesses. And this is the biggest shortcoming of the current situation in the marketplace. Too many options from too many sellers, whilst we have too little information and not enough time to process the informational avalanche of novel technology.

Having been involved for so many years in technology, I find the only way we can deal with this is to use frameworks that provide a step-by-step roadmap that is easy to follow and pursue. Hence, I designed one and am now sharing it with everyone interested – after testing it on my businesses and a bunch of customers.

Welcome to my digital world; I hope you will enjoy the ride!