Uncle Ben was ahead of his time when he told the young Peter Parker in the Spider-man movie, "With great power comes great responsibility". 

That’s because onboarding and managing a new tool in your tech stack may seem daunting at first. However, is highly rewarding with the right approach and guidance.

Source: giphy

What is a tech stack and why do you need it?

A tech stack is all the software tools in your arsenal put together to build and run your application or website and empower you to accomplish your day-to-day goals with minimal human intervention.

• No two tech stacks are the same.

• A tech stack has two sides - the front end (facing clients) and the back end (server-side).

It has applications across your business, such as efficiency enhancement, customer relationship management, cyber security, data security, marketing automation, etc.

Talking of marketing automation alone, as per Emailmonday,  40% of B2B companies are looking to adopt the technology for it. 

Source: emailmonday

Thus, the fortune of your business relies heavily on the tech stack that you opt for. 

So, while choosing a tool, you need to be clear-headed about your exact business requirements, compatibility factors, cost-effectiveness, cyber security, ongoing technology trends, and your new tool’s ecosystem support.

How to onboard a new tool into your tech stack

Even figuring out the right tool and acquiring it is not enough. You can easily run into a wide range of problems while trying to onboard a new tool to your tech stack. Thus you need to cover these bases:

Abiding by the “terms and conditions”: Admit it, at some point (or all the time 🤪) you’ve been guilty of clicking on the “I agree” icon after downloading a new software without reading the terms and conditions. However, onboarding is a different ball game as it can turn the fortune of your business around.

You and the concerned team must go through the contract form and its terms and conditions like a hawk. You should always be asking questions like, “What would happen to the images featured in my blogs if the tool used to build it brings up a new image-related copyrights-based change”? 

Handling multiple tools simultaneously: Running a new tool, along with the other existing tools requires diverted attention. It’s like running multiple businesses simultaneously, with your team’s focus switching back and forth. However, with proper planning, it’s not as challenging as it may seem initially.

Getting over the ROI concerns: Imagine that you have acquired a new tool but due to limited know-how, you are not able to maximize its utility. But you still have to pay the subscription fee. And so, you could easily land into the “tech-debt” zone. Hence, having a regular inspection and audit of your tools is vital.

Overcoming lack of expertise: To make things worse, what if the in-house expert or the freelancer who used to operate your newly acquired tool, is not with you anymore? 

Or what if you acquired a tool but your admin left, and then you’re scared to touch it as you don’t want anything in there to break?

That’s why you should consider having a partnership with a reliable revenue operations agency, that could help you every step of the way to maximize your workload efficiency by harnessing your tool’s maximum potential.

Quality assurance: Regular testing would be needed to make sure that your tool is hitting the sweet spots of your overall requirements. 

Also, you need to make sure that it is compatible with your existing infrastructure, the programming languages that you deploy for projects, and the overall framework.

Knowledge curve: You might have the bucks to add the latest Ferrari to your garage, but without reading the manuals, you might end up using it like any other car, which lacks top-notch features.

Similarly, you need to make sure that your team is constantly upgrading themselves to get familiar with the tool’s Application Programming Interface (API), the unique features that set it apart, and the overall framework.

Regular reporting: Starting from preparing the list of the stakeholders, to updating it at regular intervals to monitor the progress and everyone’s involvement should be on your agenda.

This will enlighten you about who is not being able to utilize tools’ potential and then you could figure out why and then work on it. A popular tool like ClickUp can be used to track the timing and usage, like shown in the image below.

Tool Integrations: Integration of tools is needed to reduce the burden on your internal resources and enhance data management, cost-effectiveness, security, and so on. 

However, if not executed properly, it can easily lead to missing gaps, inefficient reporting, un-updated fields, entries, etc. But no worries, all it takes is the right guidance to address such pain points to be able to maximize the utility of your integration progress.

Documentation: The significance of proper documentation can’t be stressed enough as your team can have clear instructions regarding the usage, terms, and conditions. This will also allow your company’s top decision-makers to have a timely overview of the pipeline.

Along with that, the presence of active community and official support channels would be icing on the cake.

Data migration: Migrating your data from one tool to another might often be the need of the hour if you wish to onboard a new tool. The reason is, that in this marketing-automation-led era, different tools in varying capacities allow you to utilize your data for different purposes.

But it’s easier said than done as the unexpected errors, unwarranted time consumption and the underutilization of the platforms concerned may hinder your migration progress. However, with the dedicated team of  MarTech experts, you can overcome all such hurdles.

How do you implement the new tool in your tech stack?

Now that you have acquired the needed wisdom, it’s time to get to the actual implementation part that perhaps matters the most.

Friendly warning: You still need some clarity before jumping to implementation.😋

Keeping the checklist ready: You have to make sure that you’re ticking all the boxes timely. For instance, after adding Salesforce to your tech stack, you must go through the Salesforce implementation checklist before implementing it. 

Or let’s say, it’s always handy to have the tips for a successful Marketo implementation from the RevOps experts.

Giving the bottom-up approach a chance: While the top-down approach seems quite convenient for a lot of business decisions, it can easily lead to disagreements with your developers and engineers when it comes to implementing a new tool.

A study by Harvard Business Review found the bottom-up approach to be more effective while rolling out new technology, as your tech peeps are far more equipped to predict the shortcomings, and areas that would need attention, and they are the ones who are going to implement your new tool after all.

Gathering feedback: Getting feedback from all of the stakeholders concerned is the way to go. 

From the CEOs, CGOs, and CFOs to the project managers and engineers, different stakeholders can provide you with different perspectives and insights. 

This would become the foundation for consistent improvement and enhanced accountability across your organization.
And what could be the better way to keep everyone involved and together work towards the common goal?

Embracing the shortcomings: And just to let you know, the compatibility challenges, data loss, security breaches, and even being clueless at times are perfectly normal when you are just getting started. It’s alright if your development team doesn’t build a highly scalable solution at first, but they need to have a roadmap ready for future endeavors.

Having said that, be prepared to accommodate the lost productivity during onboarding and implementation by taking care of timelines effectively.

Data-backed reporting: To be able to make data-driven decisions, when a new technology is welcomed, your enterprise architecture should be able to ensure flawless integration across systems. 

After that, you can come up with detailed reports with tools like Tableau, Microsoft Power BI, GA4, etc., using which you and the decision-makers can take a call regarding what more needs to be done about the new tool depending on the business requirements.

Using a single dashboard: Do you know what commonly creates silos in organizations? It’s the lack of communication. Silos may exist if the different departments are using different tools in isolation, thus limiting collaborations and your business’ success.

What’s the solution? 😐 The solution is to set the context upfront, define the roles clearly, and most important of all, use a single dashboard to manage the implementation of the new and existing tools in your tech stack. As per Forbes, the chances of silos being created reduce if things related to tool(s) can be found in one place.

Helping employees adapt to the new tool: You should begin by providing training but at the same time, promote the idea of self-training and follow-up questions. The use of bite-sized learning videos can be made for the same.

And then, your evaluations should be followed with further guidance and even incentives to keep your employees motivated about the new tool.

You could assign mentors to the employees who need a bit of hand-holding initially.

The bottom line is, that you should involve your employees in this change management process so that they not only feel welcomed and participative but also become a part of this ongoing change.

Hey you! 👋 Hello from the other side 👋 (singing in Adele’s voice) 😃

It seems like you’re on a reading spree! 📚 And although going through the points above is alright, an example to showcase implementation would make your reading worthwhile! 🎁

So let’s dive into the problems of ChoiceLocal (an Ohio-based ROI-focused digital marketing agency specializing in franchise systems), who were skeptical about the accuracy and limitations of its GA4 implementation compared to GA3 (Universal Analytics). 

They sought assistance to establish a best-in-class GA4 setup to bolster their data-driven marketing strategies.

Also, doing justice to the digital analytics of numerous franchises seemed improbable. And to be able to do that, they needed to consolidate the historical Google Analytics data.

Some of the key actions taken by our RevOps experts included enhancement of the GA4 setup,  implementation of the best practices to guarantee the functionality and consistency of GA4 configurations, cloud data warehouse setup, and the GA4 reporting migration.

As a result of our efforts, they accomplished improved data accuracy, and streamlining of their historical data storage with a centralized hub through the implementation of BigQuery as a data warehouse. 

Furthermore, through robust GA4 reporting, they could track trends and year-over-year performance accurately. 📊

How to optimize your tech stack

After onboarding and implementing the new tool(s), there lies one final challenge (we promise 😋), and that’s bringing out the best of your tech stack. 

Think of your tech stack like a well-oiled machine, its health directly impacts your business’s efficiency. By consistently using the best tools and strategies, you’ll keep it running at peak performance. 

Here are the top tools and techniques you should employ for a healthy tech stack.

Some of the ways to optimize your tech stack include the following:

Consistent tool audit: Regularly evaluate each tool’s ROI and ensure it aligns with your evolving business needs.
If a tool has been sitting idle for months, then perhaps letting it go won’t be a bad idea!

Aligning the tool with business value: Let’s say you are looking for some of the best marketing automation tools. Don’t just follow trends or competitors. Ensure every tool in your stack meets your unique requirements, such as audience needs, budget, and team capabilities.

Managing tech debt: Accept some tech debt where necessary, but ensure it’s strategically planned. Regular audits will help identify areas where you can reduce it without sacrificing productivity.

Learning from the success stories of businesses: Case studies from competitors or industry leaders can offer valuable insights. 

For instance, while trying to consolidate your tech stack, do challenges like ambiguity in the previously designed process, them being overly time-consuming, and non-user-friendly, sound familiar?

If so, you could take a leaf out of the case study of one of the world's largest Oil & Gas companies that addressed these pain points by leveraging Salesforce. 

Break organizational silos: Use your tech stack to foster cross-departmental collaboration. Choose tools that support communication and transparency across teams, driving synergy.

Stay ahead with technology trends: Embrace cutting-edge technology like Adaptive AI and multimodal systems. These innovations can future-proof your tech stack and streamline workflows, helping you adapt to real-world changes effortlessly.

Streamlining the IT landscape: At the end of the day, it’s your IT folks who are the Avengers in your tech stack realm. Regular communication with them ensures that underperforming areas are identified and addressed quickly.

Risk management: Ensure your database and cloud services are resilient enough to handle potential disruptions. Having a backup plan for critical systems will protect your business during unexpected challenges.

Continuous monitoring: Regularly review performance metrics, scalability, and efficiency. Ongoing assessments help you identify bottlenecks and ensure continuous improvement across your tech stack.

It's a wrap!

With years of experience in optimizing tech stacks across industries, our RevOps team at RevX is here to help you overcome any challenges you face. 

Whether it’s integration, automation, or strategy, we ensure every dollar you invest in your tech stack drives business growth. Let’s chat about how we can help you hit your goals consistently. 📈