When working with consultants to determine how technology investments can enable business success, you should follow an integrated best-practices process. Consultants should analyze your business’ current state and goals and deliver an actionable plan to advance your communications capabilities. You should gain a deeper, fact-based understanding of the specific ways technology spending supports strategic imperatives, and confidence in your plan to expand communications. The consultants should first develop a comprehensive understanding of your products, customer segments, and strategy. Fact gathering should include your current market position, competitive threats, and business and communications capabilities you need. The consultants should evaluate your current approach to communications, and prepare a multi-year communications roadmap based on your current and evolving must-have capabilities. Defining measurements is essential. While the majority of companies understand the importance of tracking results, many companies find it difficult to put truly meaningful measurements in place. Often, there’s an overload of data, but no process to analyze and document the results. Experienced consultants should be able to help you determine the right data to collect, and the scales to use for interpretation. Your consultants should assess the impact of each existing communications project you are funding. Does the communications investment contribute to generating revenue, cutting costs, improving customer service, or lowering business risk? Value must be weighed against cost. Then look at the proposed communications investment: walk through the proposed capital and operational spending and evaluate the expected impact. For the best ROI, the final proposed solution should include as much of your existing equipment as possible, should address upgrade and migration paths that suit your long-term schedule, and should support multiple vendors’ equipment as deemed by your budget or preference. | 
