Your Tech Stack is a mix between your toolbox, and your business funnels. It is an automated deck of cloud-based tools you compile to carry out your company tasks and facilitate your needs. Your stack needs to be able to do a few things:

1. Integrate with your software applications
2. Perform functions from development to marketing
3. Accessible from anywhere to your team with the proper permissions

A Tech Stack can be as simple as integrating an excel spreadsheet with your CRM, or as advanced as a series of SaaS products that allow you develop and launch an app. Where do you start? What are the advantages? And what kind of tools should be in your stack?

Stacking for Efficiency

The best place to start is with an analysis of your business needs; current pathways, sales funnels, marketing channels, devops needs, and current software. Creating a Tech Stack should streamline and automate your efforts wherever possible, so preliminary identification of the benefits you are looking to gain is key.

Existing Resources

There’s no reason to redo work, unless that work isn’t working. Here are a few things to keep in mind when evaluating your current implementations:

1. Are there defined processes in place that are effective?
2. How many people need to be involved in each process, and who has visibility?
3. Can any of the process be streamlined either with management or a new product?
4. Are any processes being repeated?
5. Are there any communication obstacles or delays to processes based on the current setup?

Use this list as a guide to help pinpoint weak spots, or points of congestion in your procedures and take the time to define what you want your best practices to be.

Where Can You Automate?

There are many applications in the marketplace so the first decision you need to make is do you need a software that encompasses a wide variety of needs, or something niche? The next thing to look at is which elements of your processes do these services automate, and what would be your expected workflow? Is there onboarding? Is migration included? What is the day-to-day ask and alerting structure of each platform and will it ultimately ease your flow or complicate your model?SaaS solutions cover eCommerce, banking, real estate, network marketing, marketing automation, invoicing, CRM, and an endless sea of additional scenarios that automate pieces of your operations. Once you’ve nailed down the spectrum that you need covered, you can start to dive into the specifics. Let’s use network monitoring as an example to talk about some universal points you need to consider no matter what business function you need to implement.

Customizing Your Software

When selecting a service - such as network monitoring - to fit into your Tech Stack, you need to make sure that service implements into your current software, has the capability to track your databases and resources, works with the design and code of your site (iframes, shopping cart functions, basic auth, etc), and generally eases your workflow rather than requiring a total system reconstruction just to implement a third-party solution.General Ideas to Keep in Mind

1. Nothing in your Tech Stack should require significant Dev effort
2. Maintenance of the service should be simple
3. Your provider should have a Service License Agreement (SLA) that determines their guaranteed Uptime and availability. You do not want to be compromised if an application in your Stack goes down.

Ensure Scalability

Since you don’t own every company within your Tech Stack, you are giving up a certain element of control - do the services in your Stack have multiple plan levels and tiers? Are there add-on capabilities? What kind of financial commitment are you in for as your needs change over time?

Test Integrations

The tech in your Teck Stacks need to be able to communicate with one another. They also need to facilitate any type of escalation, notification, or alerting structure you need to put in place to manage your client communications, incident response flows, and team communications. The other element to test -in the vein of communication - is the vendor’s support response. If a 3am problem occurs and you need to reach out for additional support, logs, or assistance, will the vendor be available? This calls back to your SLA agreements as well - make sure you’ve outlined the terms for your Tech Stack applications prior to signing any contracts.

Trial and Error

Take advantage of demos, onboarding, and free trials to test out software for your Tech Stack. Delve deep into the documentation and make sure the solutions in your stack are practical and can be applied to your current infrastructure. Work smarter not harder, and ensure you’re going to benefit from your Tech Stack. Need help? As we said, the sea of SaaS solutions is endless and we have insider knowledge. Reach out to us today to kickstart your stack with our recommendations.