You know the saying, “From the mouth of babes”, well the below advice will hopefully go to a smart entrepreneur’s ears.  

Last month, when Sunny and I were in India, we took Shaan, our youngest, with us. He had the opportunity to interact with our partners, ITBD leaders and community members, but he also had a first-hand look at a day in the life at IT By Design. It was quite funny, the very first day that he went to the office, he got a tour. He found his dad’s office, my office, and figured out which teams were in which areas. He planted himself in Mom’s office, pulled out his iPad, and, while I was helping prep for the big ITBD mashup video, and Sunny was busy with meetings, Shaan became a very observant 13 year old.  

At the end of our very first shift in each of the offices, Shaan presented us with a list of items that he was recommending, concerned about, or thought we needed to get started with. The funny thing is some of the ideas were really insightful. It’s really interesting that people don’t pay as much attention to kids as they should. Our very first day in Chandigarh, he told us about some staff members who were chit chatting for two hours about their boyfriends. He wondered why we put a game of backgammon in our Noida office when the minimum time it takes to play one game is 1 1/2 hours. He brought to our attention why entire teams were going to lunch together. It was wonderful to see how his mind was built for entrepreneurship.  

Below is the list of items, completely unedited, that he sent to Sunny and I after his first day in Chandigarh. Funny thing, most we’re doing, some we’ll start doing, some may not fit, and others are definitely Rocks to consider. I thought I would share the value of allowing our children to be a part of what we do, immersing them in a business culture, and being pleasantly surprised with the results. Hope you all enjoy the read. I’m tagging Shaan since he has his own LinkedIn account, and hope you’ll share some words of encouragement.  

What We Can do 

  1. Send a survey to all customers asking what services they would like to see and put a list of ideas on the survey  
  2. Ask why former customers left and fix the issue’s 
  3. Tell current and former customers about new services 
  4. Offer financing options  
  5. Offer discounts dependent on how long they get the service for  
  6. Ask customers/survey them to see what they would like to see  
  7. Promote marketing online more  
  8. Create incentives to use our services more than another companies  
  9. Add other payment forms like Apple Pay or cash  
  10. Put some services in packages like Noc’s and engineers or engineers and EA’s  
  11. Add geographic reach aka add EA’s and engineers in different locations) so customers can have them go into there offices and help them with everyday things  
  12. Put prices competitively it could take away sales from other companies 
  13. Hire an AIS-artificial intelligence specialist to allow people to chat with it about our services on the website  
  14. Get people to help the customers on the website faster  
  15. Create a googleBusiness account so if people search something that our company does it will come up faster  
  16. Create a business blog like candidKam  
  17. Run googleads  
  18. Put customer reviews on all platforms from the website to social media Respond to questions and reviews.                                                                    
  19. Create a Facebook business page   
  20. Do some YouTube advertising  
  21. Engage the audience on all platforms  
  22. PUT THE TIKTOK ON THE WEBSITE!!!! 
  23. Collaborate with tech influencers  
  24. Invest in social media advertising  
  25. Form more cross partnerships  
  26. People who give us our email should be sent emails about our new services  

 

Some New Services  

  1. IOT– IoT, internet-embedded sensors that permit communication between devices and machinery, authorizes you to pinpoint and resolve issues in real time. Think of these sensors as the lights in your vehicle; they alert you when something isn’t working correctly or needs a tune-up. Fortune Business Insights predicts that the global IoT market will inflate to $145 billion in 2027. 
  2. Automation-Software automation enables you to perform simple tasks from bank reconciliations and accounting to allocating invoices to clients and rapid data migration automatically. Automatic processing helps MSP team members focus on high-tier tasks while boosting productivity and reducing errors. 
  3. Cybersecurity-Cyber threats can lurk around every corner and attack without warning. Average data breach costs were $4.24 million in 2021 according to IBM, up from $3.86 million in 2020. That’s a lot of money to waste for something you can prevent. For example, you can encrypt your data with data encryption keys that jumble information into unreadable content for hackers. 
  4. Artificial intelligence-AI is in everyday products such as Alexa, Google, and Siri. It’s also spreading into the accounting and manufacturing industries. It can expedite manual processes with automation and implement different tools such as machine learning, natural language processing (NLP), and robotic processing automation. Statista forecasts the AI market revenue will hit $126 billion by 2025. 
  5.  Cloud solutions-More and more industries are adopting cloud solutions from accounting and product lifecycle management (PLM) to enterprise resource planning (ERP). Who can blame them, though? Cloud platforms come with multiple perks. You can access a cloud solution on any mobile device with a strong internet connection and gain real-time information. These solutions are available on vendors’ third-party servers, saving plenty of RAM space on your company computers. Unlike on-premise solutions, you can work with flexible subscription fees. Markets and Markets predicts that the cloud computing market will reach $947.3 billion by 2026. 
  6.  Alerts-Catch issues early and stay in the loop about changes with alerts and notifications. 
  7.  Reporting-Draft various documents for clients collectively and individually. Also, perform multiple analyses for data collection and evaluation. 
  8.  Account management-Govern all companies and clients in one centralized location. Add personalization’s to pinpoint customer information efficiently. 
  9.  Seamless Billing-Keep customer information centralized with smooth access to billing information to ensure all information is correct. Employees can fill out timesheets swiftly and track budgets to determine fully or partially paid objects. 
  10.  Client Management-Centralize client information so that you can access it in a single location. This repository provides real-time visibility of factors such as issues raised and upcoming projects. It gathers information from emails, client touchpoints and communication history to help streamline sales and CRM. It also archives historical data on factors such as activities, tasks, projects and issues. The program looks at clients’ billing history and flags any outstanding invoices. 
  11.  Task Management-Revise tasks in the project planning process and reassign and rearrange tasks. These adjustments are then automatically reflected at the issue, sale, or project level. You may log and complete work through the program’s tasks boards to manage resources, staff and time effectively. Job synchronization is also available through direct integrations with Google, Office 365 and Exchange/Outlook. 
  12.  Mobile Access-You may utilize the iOS or Android apps for mobile devices to add customers and contacts, monitor projects in real time and document client, project, sale or ticket activities. You can also implement searching and filtering, timers, sales, project management, tasks, etc., even when you’re away from the office to stay on top of everything. 

For more content like this, be sure to follow IT By Design on LinkedIn and YouTube, check out our on-demand learning platform, Build IT University, and be sure to register for Build IT LIVE, our 3-day education focused conference, September 9-11 in Orlando, FL!