A survey by CDW recently found three key lessons about the use of technology in high growth rate SMBs.

1) High growth rate firms integrate technology in the company’s strategic plan
2) Owners/leaders of high growth rate firms understand technology
3) High growth rate firms leverage their technology to the fullest

To me, the first concept is a no-brainer. Any company starting out today that doesn’t view technology as a strategic differentiator (or at the very least as a requirement to remain competitive) is going to struggle with growth. Give your employees the bare minimum resources they need to keep up with their jobs, and they’ll get the bare minimum done. Simple as that.

It’s also easily understandable that technophile business owners will use technology more and therefore grow faster than their technophobe competitors. I do see examples of technologically challenged SMB owners still doing well. But the owner who “gets it” is always on the lookout for new ways to apply technology to drive their growth. It’s just part of their DNA.

But, in my experience, the last point is key. I see so many businesses that purchase technology and then fail to take full advantage of its capabilities. Software modules go unused because they don’t handle a process exactly as the company wants to do it. Old manual efforts continue to exist even though the same process is now managed in the software. Spreadsheets continue to get manually compiled instead of automated with data from the new system.

If you’re going spend the money on the technology, you might as well maximize your return. Don’t just rely on your vendors to help you. Their primary purpose is to sell. If they sell Point of Sale systems, they’re not going to look for ways to streamline your back-office operations.

Use the staffing model I described over the past couple days. Find yourself a Project Manager who can help you over the long term. Identify inefficiencies. Drive them out of your organization. Repeat.

I’ve been reading a bit about how to create a successful blog. Know your audience. Be concise. Be accurate. Be funny. This seems easy but will probably challenge me for a bit while I get used to blogging. So stick around while I get it figured out, ok?

I think my target audience is business leaders at small to mid-sized companies. Not necessarily geography-specific, but there may be some occasional topics that aren’t all that relevant to out of state readers. While some of the topics may be more technical in nature, I’ll try to write in a manner that seeks to educate non-techies rather than sharing specialized information with my fellow geeks.

I’ve got many potential topics already lined up and will try to write at least several times a week. Drop me a line to let me know how I’m doing, if you’ve ideas for topics you’d like covered, or just want to say hi.

It’s commonly stated these days that technology is capable of leveling the playing field between small and large businesses. Witness the growing reliability of managed services providers, the availability of low cost hosted services like Salesforce.com, the increasing capabilities of open source tools, and even the propagation of pseudo-programming tools like InfoPath.

I live in Billings, Montana, and the market here is all small business. Billings is a town of about 100k people, but there are only 50 or so companies with more than 100 employees! So when you do what I do, in a market like this, you need to stay tuned into low cost options that will allow our small businesses to compete when national players move in.

I intend to use this forum to talk about technology solutions specifically geared towards companies in the SMB market. It’s tough to nail down what SMB really means. But for the sake of argument, I’ll just say anything from 10-250 employees or up to about $20MM annual revenue.

I also have a special interest in how the Web 2.0 technologies are making their way into the enterprise. Personally, I think that topic is right in line with the SMB solutions. Smaller, more agile companies are always looking for ways to market themselves or streamline their operations. So they’re ripe candidates to adapt the “Web 2.0″ type tools.

Finally, as all of us in this field are doing, I’m learning a ton every day. I’ll share some of these things as we go along as well. I’m no super-coder, but hopefully the stuff I learn will be useful to you as well.

Oh, and I want to share information about the state of technology in Billings. And what you should know if you’re thinking of moving to this beautiful place called Montana. And, other stuff I run across that’s amusing, informative, useful or odd. And…

I’m sure this will evolve. Stay tuned and we’ll see what happens. Thanks for visiting and come back again soon!