This day in age, it's pretty difficult to ignore the fact technology is an integral part of doing business.  Companies such as Amazon, Wal-Mart and UPS's use of technology is one of their core competencies.  That being said, technology isn't a be-all end-all answer to making your business more efficient.

Too often, we get caught up in choosing the perfect technology for our business.  Some common mistakes include purchasing the most expensive feature-packed solution available.  Unnecessary features create customization and support problems.  Or often, a purchase is so complex we never even bother using it.  Another mistake is ignoring the business processes the technology will complement or replace.

Considering both tool-task fit and technology-strategy fit isn't obvious but thinking in these terms can help save a lot of grief when adopting a new business tool.

We can think about this fit in three steps:

1. Choosing the right tool for the task.
2. Customizing the tool for the task.
3. Reengineer the task for the tool. (Business process reengineering)

So how does this look in practice?

Our company needed a phone solution to handle sales and support calls.  Some of the considerations when choosing a solution included the fact that our team is small (less than 5 people), most of us work remotely (East Coast, West Coast, even Europe) - and we have limited resources (time, money, and staff).

Given our circumstances, most enterprise PBX (private branch exchange) systems are overkill.  On the other hand, free phone routing services such as Google Voice were a bit too simplistic for our purposes.  There are a number of phone routing solutions out there including Phonebooth, Ribbit and Line2.  However, we settled on Grasshopper as the best combination of features and price for our budget.

Grasshopper's configuration is fairly straight forward.  We created rules that forward calls into our business numbers to our cell phones that HQ doesn't answer within a specified amount of time.  We also have business hours programmed by time zone so we don't have to answer business calls outside our normal working hours.  Overall, Grasshopper is highly customizable to our needs.

Lastly, we tailored our workflow to take advantage of our phone system tailored our business workflow by encouraging people to call us.  Some companies make it as difficult possible for customers to call them - they believe this increases support costs.  We've found the opposite to be the case for us, as handling support calls over the phone is often quicker when compared to lengthy email exchanges.  Giving customers the option to phone us with their support questions actually saves us time and provides our customers with a superior experience.  Since we've seen issues that can occur with Chrometa, troubleshooting over the phone is usually quicker compared to lengthy email exchanges.

In choosing a business solution look beyond the features and bullet points.  Implementing a new business tool is a two-way street.  Technology certainly isn't standing still and neither should your business processes.

How about you - what are your favorite technologies for running your small business more effectively?