Technology Archives - BOSS Business Systems, Inc. - Copiers, Printers, IT Services and more

For years, organizations have approached technology decisions the same way: pick a brand, select a product, negotiate a price, and hope it delivers value.

But in today’s environment, that mindset is increasingly disconnected from how businesses actually operate — and it’s costing organizations time, money, and momentum.

It’s Not:“What technology should we buy?”
It’s: “What outcome are we trying to achieve?”

Technology Should Serve the Business — Not the Other Way Around

At its core, IT exists to enable the operations of the business. Production, logistics, customer experience, finance, and frontline teams are the engines that generate revenue and deliver value. Yet too often, those same operational leaders have little influence over the technology decisions that directly affect their performance.

Instead, technology demand is frequently shaped by brand familiarity, legacy standards, budget cycles, or an IT roadmap created in isolation. The result? Operations teams are left with sub-par or misaligned solutions — tools that technically function, but don’t meaningfully support how the business actually runs.

Research into outcome-based procurement consistently shows that defining what success looks like before selecting technology leads to better alignment and innovation. (Queensland Government – Outcome-Based Procurement (PDF))

The IT–Operations Disconnect

One of the most common challenges organizations face is the growing gap between IT and Operations. Operations leaders focus on throughput, uptime, safety, efficiency, and delivery. IT teams focus on systems, vendors, architectures, and security. But neither side is always fluent in the other’s language.

When IT is asked to “pick a solution” without first understanding the operational outcome, decisions default to what’s familiar — not what’s effective. This disconnect becomes especially damaging in manufacturing, logistics, and production-heavy environments, where technology must adapt to the workflow — not force the workflow to adapt to the technology.

Industry research highlights a persistent misalignment between IT delivery and business expectations when outcomes aren’t clearly defined up front. (AWS Executive Insights – Redefining Tech ROI)

When IT Reports to Finance, Outcomes Get Lost

This challenge is often amplified by an organizational structure that has quietly become common — and rarely questioned: IT reporting under the CFO.

Financial discipline is critical, but placing IT primarily under a cost-containment lens reframes technology as an expense to be minimized rather than a capability to be optimized. When IT success is measured by budget adherence rather than business impact, outcome-driven thinking gives way to procurement-driven thinking.

Research from AWS and Enterprise Strategy Group shows that organizations frequently struggle to measure ROI on major technology investments because IT and business leaders define success differently. (ESG & AWS Tech ROI Research (PDF))

A Familiar Example: Implementing AI “Because Everyone Is Doing It”

Nowhere is outcome-blind decision-making more visible today than with Artificial Intelligence. Many organizations feel pressure to “do something with AI” because competitors are talking about it, boards are asking about it, or headlines make it sound urgent.

As a result, AI initiatives often begin with questions like “Which AI platform should we use?” instead of the far more important question: “What specific business problem are we trying to solve with AI?”

What this looks like in the real world:

A team rolls out an AI tool internally, but nothing changes—because the underlying workflow is still broken, no one owns the metric, and success was never defined. Employees call it “another system,” leadership calls it “innovation,” and the pilot quietly fades.

AI is powerful — but it only creates value when outcomes are defined first: reducing manual admin work, improving forecasting accuracy, increasing equipment uptime, or enhancing customer response times. AI doesn’t create value on its own. Outcomes do.

Research on outcome-based contracting reinforces that initiatives fail when tools are selected before outcomes are defined. (ScienceDirect – Outcome-Based Contracting)

Outcomes Should Create Demand — Not Product Lists

High-performing organizations flip the traditional model: instead of IT defining the tools, Operations defines the outcomes, and IT enables them.

Old question

“Which brand should we standardize on?”

Better question

“What should success look like for production, uptime, scalability, security, or customer experience?”

Outcome-driven frameworks emphasize that value is created when organizations define the job to be done before selecting solutions. (Outcome-Driven Innovation overview)

BOSS as an Outcome Finder, Not a Product Pusher

At BOSS, we’ve intentionally positioned ourselves as a Trusted Advisor, not a transactional reseller. With access to 250+ technology partners and our Pathfinder framework, we help organizations translate business outcomes into technical requirements and identify the right solution — not just the most familiar one.

A Modern Example: Meter’s Outcome-First Model

Companies like Meter exemplify this shift. Rather than selling individual networking components, Meter delivers networking as an outcome — predictable cost, simplified operations, reliability, and scalability — all bundled into a single service.

Their partnership with Lumen reinforces this approach by offering enterprises a simplified, outcome-driven WAN-to-LAN experience. (Meter partnership post • Lumen press release)

The Takeaway

Operations should define demand
Outcomes should drive decisions
Technology should follow purpose, not branding
IT should be measured by impact, not just cost

The future belongs to organizations that stop buying technology for what it is and start investing in technology for what it delivers. At BOSS, our mission is simple: Help you find the outcome — and then the right path to achieve it.

Want a simple outcome-first framework?

If you’re evaluating AI, networking, security, or infrastructure this year, start with the outcome—and build the plan from there. If you want a second opinion, we’re always happy to be a sounding board.

Visit BOSS Business Systems

References

AWS Executive Insights – Redefining Tech ROI: https://aws.amazon.com/executive-insights/…
ESG & AWS Tech ROI Research (PDF): https://d1.awsstatic.com/…/esg-research-insights-paper-aws-tech-roi-report-pdf.pdf
Queensland Government – Outcome-Based Procurement (PDF): https://www.hpw.qld.gov.au/…/usingoutcomebasedprocurementapproach.pdf
ScienceDirect – Outcome-Based Contracting: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0268401223000051
Outcome-Driven Innovation overview: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Outcome-Driven_Innovation
Meter + Lumen partnership: https://www.meter.com/blog/meter-lumen-partnership • https://ir.lumen.com/news/…/Lumen-and-Meter-Team-Up…

Russell Fisher

CEO, BOSS Business Systems

Are you considering permanent remote work for your company? Here a few reasons this might be worth pursuing.

Because of the Covid-19 pandemic many companies have been more or less forced to set up a remote workforce. We believe that while some companies will go back to their model of working in the office 8-5, there are a good majority that will keep their employees at home after the pandemic is over. A national U.S. survey found that 73 percent of remote workforce workers report higher satisfaction with their jobs. With the number of technology solutions that exist (many of which we offer) this is something for business owners to seriously take a look at. Here are 3 reasons why you may want to consider this for your company.

#1: Increased Employee Productivity

There has been a ton of research that indicates a major increase in staff production by using a remote workforce. Some companies have technology in place to manage task based production targets. Simply meaning, once employees complete their tasks they are more or less done for the day. As long as they continue to hit these goals, and you have an effective system in place to track their statistics and productivity, then worrying about how many hours they work may not be as much of a concern. Staff generally spend time “in the office” not doing work but just chatting about the latest scandals, news, etc.

45% of home workers report they are able to work smarter (get more done in less time)
44% say they are less distracted and accomplish more than in the office
90% of managers report employees are more productive when given the flexibility to choose when and how they work

#2: Greater Employee Retention

Today many employers are using the remote workforce model as a key benefit to being employed with their company. When given the opportunity to chose between a company that doesn’t offer remote work and one that does, 82% of employees say they would be more loyal to employers that offer this perk than those that do not. In addition, studies also show that, depending on your type of business, you open up a much larger geographic zone to hire from as drive time and distance do not limit your potential talent pool.

#3: Increase yours and your employees bottom line

Allowing your employees to engage in remote work can save you and them a great deal of money. Global Workplace Analytics reports that if 50 percent of the U.S. workforce worked from home half of the time, the savings would be over $700 billion a year. Not to mention the environmental impact of removing a large majority of cars off the roads. In addition, there are many companies offering inventory fulfillment services so that companies can lower overhead on warehousing costs, etc. Fulfillment companies can ship order for you by directly interfacing with your company software. With an ever evolving digital landscape around Unified Communications As a Services (UCAAS) and Contact Center As a Service (CCAAS), companies can massively cut overhead for in house technology and push it to the cloud, further enabling the work from home business model.

And most of all, let’s not forget real estate costs. The savings here is immense.

How can we help?

BOSS over the last 2 years has fully evolved its offerings to not only include the latest in copier and printing technology, but in becoming an office technology provider in the truest sense. We have decided to make a strong stand in pushing customers who work with us to the cloud. There are very few reasons why small businesses of 100 employees or less still need to manage on-site technology such as servers, phone systems, etc.

We have created turn-key packages of solutions which focus on a few key areas:

Connectivity:

The common attitude is, “we just buy our internet and find the fastest and cheapest solution out there.” This is a bad approach, especially when more and more of business applications are accessed via the cloud. The correct approach is not a “one size fits all” approach. BOSS has access to nearly every one of the largest internet service providers (ISPs) in the industry and can broker these solutions, or combination of solutions, to get you the exact service and redundancy that your company needs. In addition, we can offer up some of the industries best in internet connectivity optimization. (aka SD-WAN)
Communication:

The quality of your business communications is of utmost importance to our cloud consultants. With the office world quickly evolving to mobile based communications and not being tied to the desk, this brings both opportunity and complexity to deciding on which solutions are best for you. Our cloud-trained consultants come to the table with a suitcase of solutions that they will tailor-pick to best match your company’s needs. How can people reach you anywhere? Get rid of the cost of in-house premise based phones systems? Add integrated chat, conference and file sharing for internal communications and get away from high risk email? All of these are possible with our solutions and more.
Security:

Once your business has moved all or most of its applications and company functionality to the cloud it is critical that it is properly secured. Our experts can consult your business about the exact solutions you need to secure your organization. Between BOSS staff and our partner relationships we can help any company with security as well as policy and compliance services. In addition, we offer a Security Operations Center (SOC) solution to deal with issues that come up on your network. It’s one thing to have the hardware in place to detect security threats, but who handles detected issues? The SOC takes care of this aspect.

AI Lunch & Learn Event

Stop Buying Technology by Brand. Start Demanding Outcomes.

Stop Buying Technology by Brand. Start Demanding Outcomes.

Technology Should Serve the Business — Not the Other Way Around

The IT–Operations Disconnect

When IT Reports to Finance, Outcomes Get Lost

A Familiar Example: Implementing AI “Because Everyone Is Doing It”