How Important Your Digital Infrastructure Is to Your Revenue

This post by Douglas Eldridge, Marketing Manager at censhare, originally appeared on censhare’s We Care to Share Blog. We think it will be useful to our readers. Enjoy!

Investing in infrastructure is a tough sell to a lot of people. Take your house for example. The most important and expensive features of your house are likely your sewage and HVAC systems, and yet they’re the last things anyone wants to spend money on because you can’t see them, you can’t show them off to your friends. As a result, even the nicest looking homes are often on the verge of disaster.

And many organizations are going the same way. While we know that the cliché “every company is a technology company” is not true, it can be said that every company is powered by technology. It used to be that an internet connection and a Microsoft office subscription was good enough for small companies, with larger businesses needing only a few more servers. Now, however, with the influx of data which needs to be managed, a solid IT infrastructure is essential.

Not Good Enough

The  average corporate spend on IT infrastructure currently forms only 18% of the entire technology budget , while top performing companies usually spend almost double that at 34%. These percentages are expected to rise but the gap will only get wider. It will no longer be a question of investing in solid IT for laggards, but a matter of investing too little too late and just hoping for survival.

Skeptical? As technology companies such as Amazon become larger they will continue to acquire, or in most cases simply beat, the competition. Think you’re not the competition? Maybe not now, but is it hard to imagine Amazon starting an Uber-like model for what is traditionally a local company; plumbing, handy-men, electricians, etc.? If you do not have the foundational structure to enable you to compete with such giants, such as the technology for great customer experience (CX) and a way use your data to get your message to the right audience at the right time within the bounds of the law, your company will not only lose revenue opportunities but eventually fade into oblivion.

Or, on the flip side, if you’re working for a multi-national company with revenue that leaves most of the developing world’s GDPs in the dust, do you trust your infrastructure to safely house and manage your data? With recent hacks of companies like Uber, Equifax and Yahoo, can you afford to wait to invest in trustworthy digital infrastructure?

And do you trust that your data is being managed correctly? With the initiation of GDPR only five short months away, are you willing to bet four percent of your revenue that your digital infrastructure can handle the rigors of data protection?

We’re all in this together

No matter what size company you work for, your digital infrastructure is vital to its revenue. The investment you make now will not only guarantee that you are able to produce any revenue in the distant future, it will allow you to make gains on the competition. The companies which will succeed will invest heavily in digital infrastructure for three reasons: 

• Because they have vision
• Because they want to get the most out of their marketing dollars
• Because they understand that data has a value and they want to get the most out of it 

To learn more about how you can take steps to increase your revenue by investing in your digital infrastructure, check out our free guide: Future-Proofing Your Digital Asset Management and Creative Production.