When your business is growing, and you need to expand your organization it’s both a great problem to have, and an opportunity to consider how to efficiently drive ROI. When it comes to Information Technology (IT) it’s prudent to look at your CapEX (projects) and your OpEx (“keep the shop running”) separately and collectively. What this means is that projects may need what we call “bubble capacity” that can be managed as OpEx, turned on and off as needed. Your OpEx can serve your day-to-day needs but can be planned over a longer horizon to leverage your “buy”, and minimize costs associated with the ebb and flow of talent requirements.

For SMBs who have limited IT departments, effectively and efficiently managing internal IT and external talent enables more IT project work to get done, more quickly and within a defined budget. For SMBs this means they too can leverage current technologies, including mobile eCommerce, AI, and Automation, to better compete with the “big guys”. One way to do this is to plan your IT projects with short-deliverables (using Agile) while tying those deliverables to your 12-month business plan, that in turn is tied to your 3+ year business strategy. Then decide what core talent is critical to have in-house, and what project deliverables can be contracted with an IT partner. The IT partner will be chosen based on highest quality for the best price, but also in terms of their ability to provide hard-to-find talent.

So, when your business is growing there is an opportunity to drive better ROI; and do it faster. The formula is the right mix of internal IT talent with a partner that can provide “bubble capacity”. The result. Increase your capacity and bring in the ROI timeline.