I have already used the term mission. A good mission statement reflects what the business really wants to do and it addresses all aspects of what the business is planning to do. It will incorporate statements about finances, market position and principles. All of this will be written in language that all the stakeholders can understand and at a high enough level that it is not restrictive. The mission statement should be based on or related to the vision for the business. 
Technology is used to identify a new way of doing something, presumably a better way. The assembly line was a form of technology. So technology is not limited to hardware, or software. Technology encompasses many ideas that have been combined to form a new way of doing something. In today's world, technology is generally a combination of an idea, some hardware (usually a computer) and some software (usually a case management system for a law firm). Technology almost always includes some breakthrough scientific approach to solving an old problem.

The Problem 

Most of the businesses I visited had some advanced technology they had purchased but were not using. It may be a phone system or a case management system. My un-scientific wild guess is that more than 50% of the function businesses buy is not used. That is money subtracted from the profit. Let's say that you tell me your mission is to travel from point A to point B, and the first person to arrive at point B wins a contract. You decide on a technology that employs a gasoline engine, a car. There are many choices of cars to purchase, all with the same acceleration and top speed capability. You decide to purchase the $67,000 car because it has GPS navigation and your competitor decides on the car for $18,000. OK, so you never could figure out how to use GPS or even understood what GPS meant, but you win the race to point B. Great, however your competitor is now racing to point C and you have run out of money to purchase gasoline. You lose the next three races. The problem here is, you bought function that was not needed and this put a strain on your resources. The reverse can also be a problem. Lets assume you decide to not purchase any of the cars and use the good old horse and buggy like you always did. This time you lose all the races. So there is always a balance when dealing with technology. The question I have for you at this point is, what was your mission? Was your mission to impress your clients with the $67,000 automobile, save money by not making any purchases or was your mission to expand the business. 

Why use technology 

There is only one valid reason to ever upgrade to a new technology. That reason is, it solves a problem that you have identified, based on strategic planning. The problem could be cost being too high, case resolution too slow, client retention low, employee retention poor, client satisfaction low, or any number of business related issues. Notice that the problem you are trying to solve is business related. The problem is also related to your mission. Buying technology for vanity has little to do with running a business. Now, there may be a very valid business reason for buying technology to impress clients. Most often, however, the problem is related to finances. You need to lower cost or increase revenue. 

The relative value of any technology is how well that technology resolves your problem. If you, or your Firm, do not have a defined mission you may not realize you have a problem. If you, or your Firm, have not completed any strategic planning you have no idea how large of a problem you may have. So going out to buy technology without doing any strategic planning or having a defined mission is like spitting into the wind (my grandfathers favorite expression). You have no well-defined reason for your purchase. You have no idea if it will help or hinder the bottom line. In fact you may not even have a bottom line. A good business decision will consider the return on investment for the expense of technology and the amount of positive impact on the mission. 

Something else to consider when figuring out the return on investment. Does this technology offer any side benefits? For example, while working with one law firm we had narrowed our search for a case management system to two choices. One had a locked propriety database and the other had a simple Microsoft Access database. Other than that, both systems provided the same function. After I pointed out that Microsoft Access was a powerful tool and you could do all kinds of reports on your own, the decision was easy. 

All of what we have talked about so far just looks at the numbers. There is an emotional side to technology as well. One reason business people are reluctant to purchase technology or use all of the features they just purchased is fear. The down side of technology is that it takes control of your business out of your hands. Law Firms are a service business and deal primarily in information. To be the most effective solution, most technologies take control of this information. If you do not know what the technology is doing or how to access this information you will be very reluctant to use this new technology. For example, a law firm wants to handle new caller signup more efficiently so that they can handle more clients. The solution was to install some technology to automate the client signup. The old method was to answer a phone call and write all the client information on a form, give that form to an investigator and go sign up the client. Now they install a client management system that has all the client information entered into a system by a receptionist. This triggers a note to the investigator who takes the information needed to sign up a client. Once a contract is signed an attorney is notified by e-mail that there is a new client and a new case assigned. The technology now has control of the information, which before was very tangible on a piece of paper. For a long time this firm continued to write all the information on the paper forms. They were effectively paying for both old and new technology at the same time. There was no real time savings from the new technology because the old paper method controlled the time spent. 

You won't know what you need until you define what it is you are doing. You won't embrace the new technology until you understand what it does. Do not assume that you need the next generation of technology until you do some research. Plan for expansion, but never just purchase the highest priced widget out there and assume you will eventually grow into it.

Common Mistakes 

The number one mistake is, you bought technology for no real reason. You do not have a defined problem you are solving; you just like that shinny new widget. 

The number two mistake that I have seen is this; technology is purchased with no idea of what it can do. The purchase was made based on an emotional appeal of some sales pitch. If you do not know what the technology can do, how can you predict how well it will resolve your problem. 

The number three mistake; you bought this nice package but refuse to change the way you are doing business to accommodate the technology. Remember, technology incorporates a new way of doing something. So why purchase a new way of doing a task and then not make the change. This will determine how fast you will realistically see the predicted results. 

The number four mistake is not taking into account all the changes in support structure. The new technology may require training or new hardware. All this adds to the cost and must be incorporated when determining return on investment. 

The Correct Way to Chose Technology 

The correct way to chose technology is to first do some strategic planning. To do that you must all agree with your mission statement. Even if it is just you, on your own, you must agree on what your mission is. That is usually based on your values and your vision, which is a whole other set of discussions. For now, lets assume that you know what your mission is. With that assumption, lets also assume that some level of strategic planning has indicated a change is needed. If this is not a correct set of assumptions, you should not be looking for technology. 

So you have defined a problem and you need a solution. The most common problem in the law firms I have seen is a poor expense to profit ratio. More often than not, the attorneys cannot handle enough cases to meet their projected revenue growth. The most common solution is to find a way to handle more cases for lower cost to increase profit margins. The magic answer that almost always comes up is a case management system. So far so good, but now comes the difficult task of choosing the best technology for your situation. What you need to do now is to predict which solution gives you the best return on investment. What you are looking for is technology that will allow you to handle more cases for less cost. In fact you are looking for the technology that will allow you to increase your caseload for the least cost. 

In almost all cases technological solutions on the market today have incorporated features to solve several problems at once to capture the largest market. Well you may not need all those features and each feature cost money. So the trick is to find the package that best fits your situation at the lowest cost. The only way to do this is to understand what that technology package you are considering actually does. 

The next piece of research you need to do is to understand how that technology solves your problem. How big of a change will this be to your current way of doing business? Will you need training? Will you actually adopt the change? The answers to these questions will tell you how effective the implementation of this technology will be. There is no sense in buying new technology that you are not willing to use. 

If all that looks good, than look at the extra cost to support the technology. This is all part of the total cost for that technology. Will you need new computer systems? Do you have the space? 

Now you are ready to do an honest attempt at determining the return on investment.