IS I.T. RIGHT FOR ME?
there is three business strategies
1. Brick and Mortar
2. Click and Mortar
3. Click Only
BRICK AND MORTAR
This strategy refers to businesses that only have a physical location and no online presence. An example of this would be your corner grocery or a local shop. Businesses that use this strategy are greatly limiting their potential by only providing service to people physically in their store and limiting their ability to expand without renting a new building. A plus to having this strategy is you will not have to pay for online hosting, bandwidth or the tech guys to set it up.
CLICK AND MORTAR
This strategy refers to businesses that have a online presence and a physical location. This is probably the best choice for most types of businesses. It will allow your business to expand to people that might not even be in the same country as you and it will provide advertising to get people into your store. The IT budget can vary greatly depending on what is required but simple websites and a database should not kill your budget. The down side is that it has a potential to be very expensive and because the Internet is a public place security should be one of your top concerns.
CLICK ONLY
As you probably can guess by now, click only means that you do not have a physical location. An example of this would be amazon. businesses like this can be the simplest to maintain and require the fewest employees but can have high overhead costs. If you are planning to do something like this be prepared to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on hardware and software then get ready to pay for your Internet plan which will probably cost more per month then your car costs. There are ways to do click only cheaply but you will be limiting yourself by having underpowered computers, a slow Internet connection and untrustworthy software.
CONCLUSION
Brick and Mortar, although a traditional way of doing business, always isn't the best idea. Very few companies might benefit from from having no online presence but most will want to opt for the Click and Mortar strategy. It allows your company to have the best of both click only and brick and mortar. Finally Click Only will work in some cases but you will have to follow a "go big or go home" plan to compete against giants that already have a huge online presence.
WHAT TO EXPECT IN FUTURE POSTS
If you want to incorporate technology into your business but do not want to hire an IT professional until you are sure it works for you or if you are just an individual who wants to explore the potential of IT I will show you how to set up simple, free/cheap solutions for common needs a business might have. These needs include but are not limited to, web hosting, advertising, encryption, email, vpn and data base management. The solutions I will show you might be somewhat unreliable or inefficient for 100% dependence on them but will be enough to demonstrate what the technology is capable of for you to make a better decision about investing into that particular technology.
