Achieving Buy-In from Your CEO for New Business Tools

Picture the following scenario: you are a workforce manager looking to streamline your service requests, set up a regular facilities maintenance plan, and you’ll be expanding to a satellite location next month, with an additional fifty employees entering the overall workforce. Couple this with the normal daily tasks and demands of the current office. You’ve identified the additional modules for your existing software, which will satisfy these needs, and the cost is reasonable for the final outcome, but will require an initial investment. So, how do you convince the uppers that the money spent now will only be a fraction, compared to the savings that will be reaped? After all, the bottom line is usually the main factor driving most decisions for bosses.

The answer lies in your balanced and factual approach to selling your plan to the number crunchers. Have statistics and actual solutions for problems and be prepare to back up your needs with information which shows how your efforts will most positively affect the bottom line. Let’s examine a few key strategies for getting the go-ahead from the bosses and improving the business from top to bottom.

What Is Your Motivation?

Before approaching anyone about making changes, make sure you have thoroughly identified the problems and most viable solutions. Even though you may have a specific plan in mind, it helps to show options, comparisons and contrasts to ensure the boss understands that you have done your research and are confident about the direction the company needs to go. Include testimonials or reports from other organizations to bolster your assessments. And begin to explain the need for such a system without giving too much attention to the problems you may face, but more the solutions made possible.

 Facts and Figures 

Bosses are usually conservative in their spending practices. The figures associated with the bottom line become the primary focus for success of the business. This means your approach should also rely on solid numbers, which exemplify the savings garnered by updating or expanding your IWMS. Simply stating that the changes will be positive for the company is not enough. Be prepared to show how other organizations have benefited and the savings associated with their system upgrades and, ultimately, how this can apply to your organization.

Real-Time Data and Real-Time Results

Once you’ve explained the necessity for the system changes and you’ve outlined the associated cost, you need to relate all of this information to how it will help the company achieve overarching goals for the entire organization. Let’s return to our initial scenario, for a minute, and merge the initial and long term goals for such a project. As stated, the office is expanding. By automating the tasks for the move, you’ll not only be able to see real-time data labeling the equipment and assets moved, the space mapping and the associates taking up new residence, but you will now track all of your assets and space utilization for this location through the same software. And, since the systems are interconnected, the headquarters data for space, assets, and people will also enter into the system. Soon, the entire organization will be tracked and accounted for with fidelity, at any time and from any location.

Because you are able to more closely monitor workflow, asset and room usage, and equipment repairs and servicing, the company will reduce associated costs. Additionally, the success of this new location will give great insight, based on solid figures, into future expansion possibilities. Now the boss starts to see the goals of an organization improved through the efforts of the supporting cast, and you’re a rockstar.

As with all software and hardware expenditures, the key to making the right choice and getting the approval from C-suite is to understand what you’re trying to accomplish first and foremost and then sharing that vision with those around you in terms that they understand and connect with. Know who your audience is and make sure your information is powerful, relatable and digestible.