The Problem:

• Everyone wants you to buy their tech. They want you to do it now - when it’s best for them.
• Tech is the 10X accelerator. But there’s a LOT of it. How do you know what to do? How do you know which ones to buy?
• Many agencies ‘check the box’ when they buy - and never get optimal use from it.

Six Steps

1. A system to know what’s out there. The tech landscape changes rapidly. (Consider the hundreds of insurtechs participating in incubators and accelerators right now, pecking on the inside of their shell like little chicks.)
   1. You need a routine way to scan what’s out there now. Let your buying process start with intelligence. Not with the first inbound call from a friendly sales rep.
   2. Industry sources
   3. RSS feed
   4. Delegate research
2. A system to categorize the multitude of tech offerings. You need to start making sense of it. A way to organize it.
   • Start with ‘back office’ and ‘front office.’ Then, break it down from there.
   • Every tech is designed to solve a problem. Get clear on what problems you want solved. (For example, if your customer retention is 86% and you want it to be 92%, that’s a 6-point problem to be solved.)
3. A system to evaluate and compare vendors. Once you’ve identified problems you want solved, discover who claims to solve it. Create criteria to guide your decision:
   • [ ] Financial strength of the vendor.
   • [ ] Culture fit.
   • [ ] Features.
   • [ ] What’s on their roadmap.
   • [ ] Training.
   • [ ] Ongoing support.
   • [ ] Ease of use.
4. A system to select a solution. The natural extension of step 3 is to buy.
   • But, a viable strategy may be not to buy. To wait. Or simply move on.
   • Be sure to involve the end-users of the technology. If they don’t support it before the purchase, they won’t likely support it after.
5. A system to adopt new tech. If you thought buying was a demanding process, it was really just the ticket to the game. The real challenge is installing it. And that doesn’t merely mean installing it on your computers.
   • I mean installing it in your agency behaviors. Every tech vendor knows that the hard job of selling software is a piece of chocolate cake compared to getting the team to change behaviors - often years of ingrained habit - and doing something new.
6. A system to gain optimal mastery. The first 20% - the easy features - often deliver tangible results.
   • But, often, it’s the power-user who gains a software’s unfair advantage.
   • That doesn’t always mean mastering every feature the product engineers have jammed into their technology. But, it does mean knowing what those features are and making intelligent choices about where to invest the time and resource to use it effectively.
   • Someone must be in charge. A champion - who will be held accountable.

6L-The Tech Forward Enterprise.pdf

6L-The Tech Forward Enterprise 2.pdf