Business Economics: 3 Strategies To Help Your Business Expenditures Keep Up With Advancing Technology

New technology and software programs just keep coming and coming. So what's a business supposed to do, especially if you're responsible for managing the company's finances? Businesses are now spending 18% more in technological investments. It's even more difficult to make the right decisions when you aren't really a tech person yourself and have a hard time deciding when and if to buy new tech. Read on for three of the best strategies to help your business expenditures keep up with technology.

1. Hire IT Staff

Hiring IT staff might cost more up front, but having technology professionals on staff can save you a lot of time and money in the long run. Dedicated IT staff, especially those with knowledge in data analytics, are going to know your business's technology needs and be able to give you professional recommendations of what software and tech you need to buy, when you need to upgrade it and what you can do without. They also help prevent costly downtime.

2. Carefully Evaluate Need

Your business likely doesn't have to upgrade software or hardware once a year whenever the new models and editions come out. If you don't have IT professionals to take care of this for you, then it'll be up to you or another manager to make these decisions. The key is to recognize when the right time to upgrade is: if anything you have is no longer supported by the manufacturer or new specialized tech has come out that could be a large upgrade for your business processes, you definitely need to look at upgrading.

Skill and experience in business analytics is an important component for evaluating your need for new technology as well as what your company can afford, even if you have to bring on an outside analyst. If you are a business owner, consider consulting with your accountants or finance managers with a relevant degree such as an online master of finance before making the decision to upgrade or purchase any tech.

3. Go Open Source

While there are good reasons not to use open source software, particularly when it comes to compatibility with mainstream software other businesses and clients are using, it has a lot of benefits. For example, instead of spending money on Microsoft Outlook or other popular e-mail client programs, you can use Mozilla's Thunderbird, which has many of the same features and is completely free.

The same is true for products such as OpenOffice (an open source office suite) and Gimp (an open source image editing program with many of the same features as Photoshop). Open source software upgrades automatically and is completely free, which is understandably very budget-friendly.

With new programs and tech coming out all the time, your business's budget might take a hit as you try to keep up. But not keeping up isn't an option either—outdated technology can have compatibility problems and often opens your company up to unnecessary security risks. Hopefully these tips will help your business expenditures keep up with the influx of new technology.