If you’ve been to an industry event or attended awards ceremonies within your field of expertise you might have been left feeling like your peers are making more money than you, and you could be right!

We’ve all seen businesses that seem to scale up quickly, achieving fast-paced growth without increasing their overheads massively – these lean, profitable companies are most likely using technology to achieve these advancements and they’re the envy of their industry. It goes without saying tech can also cripple some businesses, done badly Directors suffer from massive investments that can’t deliver any tangible improvements, so they’re left feeling ripped off.

So how do you know if you’ve invested in a Ferrari or a fake?

Start with a simple question – Do you trust the data in your system?

If you actually use your data to make all the big decisions, then it’s likely that you do trust it. However, most businesses don’t trust their data and so they rely on their gut instinct instead – this always means lengthy Board Meetings where Directors argue against their rival gut instincts rather than confidently relying on data to make emotionless decisions and allowing time to spend on innovation to make their businesses better. If you are using gut instinct to make decisions then this probably means thousands of pounds wasted on a system that can’t tell you which contracts are most profitable, which engineers are most productive, where you are making margin and where you need to increase your prices, which customers to retain and get more of and which to ditch. It might sound simple but starting with the question ‘Do you trust the data in your system?’ will give you the answer.

Once the reality hits you, you’ve got a decision to make, can you turn the fake into a Ferrari? Now we all know the answer to this is that you would be best to start again, painful I know, but if your system could be configured to better suit your business why hasn’t it? Again, trust your gut, you would be better with a system that can grow with your business overtime or more accurately help you to actually grow your business over time.