Anyone have a good playbook for updating up their technical infastructure?

May 23, 2025

by a searcher from University of Washington in Seattle, WA, USA

Hi all, I purchased my company about a year ago, and we've made a ton of improvements to our basic tech infrastructure (swapping edi providers, moving from a server to cloud-based file shares, improving our email retention policies etc, improving identify management.) but we still have a long way to go. Right now I'm evaluating each decision (e.g. switching from individual email addresses to shared inboxes to improve information sharing, transitioning from an email based customer service queue to a case-based platform or ticketing service, automating our manual PO to Invoice conversion process) as the need arises. I'd getting caught in the cycle of "well I need to wait for X improvement so that we can do Y improvement the right way". I don't have a prioritized IT plan or roadmap, but I have a long list of things that need to get done, and I know that sequencing these tasks would be beneficial. Does anyone have a roadmap they've implemented to bring their acquisition up to date with modern services, and/or service providers they can recommend? Appreciate it!

Reply by a searcher
from Emory University in Tucson, AZ, USA

My partner Jeremy has focused on three areas in our business or with his consulting clients, driven by ROI: customer service/sales, inventory management, and disaster recovery. (For customer service, if you can support the minimum seats, take a look at Gladly. Jeremy is an enthusiastic fan after deploying for a client. Key love: it doesn't treat a customer like a ticket number and is multichannel in how the customer wishes to contact you.)

Reply by a searcher
in Monroe, WA, USA

Eric, in my past career I was an IT manager for several mid-size ($100m/yr) to large ($1-2B/yr) businesses, and had to solve these problems when acquisitions of smaller companies happened. I also was part of SAP acquisition team at Concur and Qualtrics, both large businesses, so I've seen different scenarios. That led me to conclusion that no playbook can cover all possible permutations of problems with acquired businesses. Available technologies change, market leaders in different technology areas change, market conditions change, personalities involved are never the same. Solutions have to be found for a specific situation. I'm also in Seattle, if you'd like to share some details of what challenges you are facing, don't hesitate to DM me. Happy to share my knowledge

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