The future feels uncertain for many enterprises right now. 

A potential recession is looming, many teams are still adjusting to a post-pandemic environment and technology is expanding at a rapid pace. 

With so much uncertainty and change, it’s difficult to decide how to make strategic investments. In particular, it’s difficult to balance technology and talent when planning for future growth.

There’s a lot of buzz right now around AI and other related technologies, which have the potential to boost operational efficiency and extract helpful new insights. 

However, technology alone won’t necessarily make an impact—you need talent on your side to implement and manage it properly. 

Why is Balancing Technology and Talent Important? 

If you opt to invest in technology without also investing in talent, or vice versa, you’re likely to end up spending a lot of money only to hit a dead end. When these two elements don’t work in harmony, it’s difficult to see growth or efficiency gains. 

Technology is a powerful tool for your organization. Your talent is what ultimately drives the value of your technology. 

When you add new tools to your stack without the talent to prop it up, you end up with a big bill that won’t generate the ROI to make it worth it.

Think of growing your business like building a house. 

If you have an amazing construction team but they only have hammers in their toolboxes, it’s going to take much longer than if they used nail guns. However, if you have a state-of-the-art nail gun but no one to use it, your tools will just be laying around, unable to build the house until someone picks them up. 

How To Balance Technology and Talent

Making continuous strategic investments in both technology and talent is necessary to keep pushing your business forward. 

It’s tempting to invest in new technologies in the hopes that they will replace members of your team and complete tasks automatically. However, this often backfires, leading to more confusion if you don’t have professionals on your team to ensure everything runs smoothly.

What About Intelligent Technology? 

With technology evolving at such a breakneck pace, it makes sense why so many executives want to invest in new tools and programs. 

Artificial Intelligence and machine learning are just starting to become mainstream. A quick Google search reveals a plethora of sophisticated SaaS programs on the market today. However, these new technologies aren’t quite “intelligent” enough to run entirely on their own yet. 

A human is still required to run each program by managing and assessing the data that goes into it, as well as configuring the technology for the best possible outcome. 

Setting Your Organization Up for Success

Technology and talent serve different but equally essential roles in your organization. You need to find the right balance between the two to make impactful, strategic investments.

You need to choose talent with the right skill set to operate new technologies, but your organization will also need to provide ongoing tech training for your team to ensure savvy technology use. 

Additionally, you want to consider employee buy-in when selecting new technologies, as they’ll be the ones using them day in and day out. 

With the constant evolution of technology, it’s crucial to work with your team to determine which tools will provide the right amount of payoff and are worth the time needed to implement them. 

What’s the Most Strategic Investment in 2023? 

In short: both technology and talent. 

Due to rapid changes in the economy and corporate landscape over the past few years, many enterprises are looking to do more with less in 2023. Efficiency was named one of the top business goals of 2023 by Forbes. 

Because of this, there’s a spotlight on using technology to make processes more efficient and reduce tedious, repetitive tasks. However, any new technology added to the stack will need to be viewed through the lens of alignment with talent. 

Over time, teams will need to continuously revisit and adjust their strategies to maintain harmony between technology and talent. 

To make the most out of your budget, you need to make sure that new technology is implemented appropriately across the organization. You also need governance to keep your entire team on the same page and facilitate clear communication. 

Enlist the Power BI Experts to Optimize Your Tech Stack

At Collectiv, we help our clients implement Power BI and other tools within the Microsoft stack. Our team of seasoned experts provides the training and support you need to get new technology off the ground across your organization. 

When new tools are implemented properly, they empower your talent to do more. This intentional implementation ensures that you make the most out of your investments. 

Whether you’re brand new to Microsoft’s Power Platform or want to fine-tune your current data strategy, Collectiv’s agile approach will get you on track for future growth. 

Schedule some time to learn more about our services, and take the first step towards making the most strategic investment in 2023.