The first step in getting strategic

If you want to make your SMB more competitive, one of the best places to look is at your technology usage. Are your electronics simply there, with technical issues that lead to downtime? Or does your technology actively support the goals of your business, help you reach higher levels of productivity and create happier employees and clients? If not, you can do something about it with XL.net’s strategic technology planning for Chicago SMBs.

Our Technology Alignment Plan (TAP) is what we call the overall roadmap and variety of services that we offer to our clients. This powerful tool supplies businesses with a clear idea of how they can improve various elements of their IT approach to support business goals.

Strategic Business IT Alignment Services for Chicago Businesses

SMBs are easily overpowered by big competitors when it comes to technological capabilities. Often that comes from the SMBs not using technology strategically.

In our strategic approach, we get to know your business — where it’s been, where it is and where you’d like it to go. And we get to know your tech — the problems, the benefits, the goals and the desired outcomes. Then we take all of that information and outline the next steps to XLerating your business.

IT alignment can offer benefits to your bottom line, the number of IT issues you have, market agility, satisfaction levels, collaboration and many other factors. Businesses that lack an alignment plan often have unorganized technology. By aligning your tech to your business goals, you can:

Reduce IT issues: We deliver up to an 80% reduction in IT issues so your staff can be 7-10% more efficient when they work.
Boost productivity: With fewer technical issues and technology that supports the way your employees work, you can significantly boost the productivity of your organization.
Increase customer satisfaction: The right technology can improve the customer experience. It might speed up the process or make it more enjoyable for the customer.
Gain peace of mind: The thorough analyses provided through tech alignment can help you ensure that your product is the right choice for your business and isn’t costing you more than it needs to.

Talk to a Strategic IT Expert

If you want to read more about the importance of aligning your tech strategy with your business goals, check out our guide on the subject.

When learning about your business, we interview key stakeholders and leadership about your technology. And we examine all the technology you have — from servers to meeting room monitors to printers. We make sure your tech suits your needs and your potential.

In less than a month, we give you a plan that can improve your performance and reduce IT issues by up to 80%.

Action plans for alignment make it easy

You’ll walk out with a road map for the future — we see where your business is, and where it could go. We provide a document that outlines a few key items to get you there:

A Current Issues List

A ranked list of IT issues that are holding your business back. These might include security problems, slow IT response times, an inefficient process for updates, recurring service disruptions and other similar events. Identifying these efficiency-reducing elements is the first step in minimizing their effects on your business.

Quarterly Plan

Projects that can be achieved within the next 90 days and success metrics. We'll identify possible technology projects, such as assessments or new implementations, as well as provide measurable data points for you to work with and calculate success.

1-Year Plan

A list of larger projects that require more time and resources and success metrics. Over time, once more of the short-term inefficiencies are reduced, you can start to focus on the big-picture elements, such as creating overall improvements to certain metrics. Continual monitoring and assessment are still critical throughout this year. As with the quarterly plan, we also provide clear measurables to work with.

We walk you through the plan and show you what you can do to reduce IT issues, increase employee efficiency, and align your IT with your business goals.

What Comes Next?

Once we’ve created a plan, we can help you follow through on it with all the resources you need. We offer a hands-on partnership that supplies you with an array of strategic IT services, including access to our 24/7 service desk, central services monitoring, a project engineer and much more. You can read more about our strategic IT services or contact us to find out more.

See what some of our clients have to say

The service and response time is what separates XL.net from the rest – The best word to describe them is…Reliable!

Skyline Tradetec

You seem to drop everything else for us when we need you.

Chang & Charlin, LLP

XL.net provides me and my business every tool we need to succeed and a peace of mind that can’t be bought. What we pay now is less than what we were paying before – with a side of extra competency. We are getting better services for less.

Illinois Ventures

The biggest benefit of XL.net is the sense of confidence they provide. We are now able to have the resources of a big company, but don’t have to pay full price for them. XL.net is an all-encompassing solution. If there is an issue, we don’t have to do anything but call them. They are easy to deal with and their staff does whatever they have to do to get issues resolved.

Phusion Projects

Compared to our previous provider, the transition to XL.net saves us $7,000 – $8,000 a month in IT expenses and the fact that we no longer have an in-house IT tech. This is the best IT vendor I have had experience with – and I’ve had a lot of experience with IT vendors in the past.

TradingBlock

XL.net offers a unique solution that makes sense for small businesses. We, like many other businesses of our size, had concerns about the reliability of our systems and processes – especially our backups; since XL.net took over I feel confident that our data is safe, and that our backups are secure and well-managed.

Tri-Star Engineering

The XL team are very thorough, communicative and helpful. We just email them and within a couple of hours the issue is fixed. They notify us as soon as the ticket is received, and let us know that they are working on our problem – plus its status. Their response is very timely. I was a little hesitant about outsourcing our IT, but It feels like they are sitting right here in the office!

American INVSO

Pain has decreased significantly. Our staff has been very pleased with the change –with XL.net, our IT issues have been reduced by 50% – this is incredibly valuable to us. It’s nice to have the peace of mind that IT problems are being taken care of fast. The XL.net staff’s expertise, professionalism, reliability, and capability are unrivaled.

Technology Alignment Plan