How SMEs can escape the technology trap by picking tools that work

There’s an app for almost everything.

One to manage customers. Another for payments. One for projects. Another for reporting. Then there’s accounting, communications, marketing, e-commerce, HR – and, increasingly, a growing collection of AI tools promising to make every one of those jobs faster.

For SMEs under pressure to become more productive, the temptation is obvious: find a problem, buy a tool and move on.

But what happens when the technology designed to make your business more efficient starts making it more complicated?

That was the question at the heart of the final Interactive Live Session at Elite Business Live 2026, where Christina Hamilton, CEO of ClearCourse, was joined by Billy Price, Managing Director of Field Services, and Josh Barling, Managing Director of Retail, to explore how businesses can choose technology that genuinely helps them grow.

Hamilton warned that too many disconnected systems can quickly turn technology from an enabler into a barrier.

The result? Wasted resources, disengaged employees, lost sales and a fragmented customer experience.

For SMEs already navigating rising costs, regulatory change and economic uncertainty, getting technology right is becoming less of a nice-to-have and more of a commercial necessity.

Beware the rise of ‘tool sprawl’

Digital technology has become embedded in almost every aspect of modern working life.

Hamilton pointed to research showing that in 2019 the average office worker interacted with around six apps or interfaces to complete their work, with that figure nearly doubling just a few years later.

The problem isn’t necessarily the number of tools.

It’s whether they work together.

When systems fail to communicate, businesses end up duplicating information, manually moving data between platforms and forcing employees to navigate a maze of different applications just to complete relatively simple tasks.

This is what Hamilton described as “tool sprawl”. And rather than making a business more productive, it can have exactly the opposite effect.

The opportunity, however, is significant.

Get technology right and SMEs can operate leaner and smarter, giving their people more time to concentrate on customers, products and growth.

Start with the problem, not the software

One of the biggest mistakes businesses make is choosing technology in isolation.

Price explained that companies will often identify a pain point within one department and immediately search for a tool to solve it.

But that ignores what is happening elsewhere in the organisation.

He recalled one customer looking for a system capable of importing Excel spreadsheets.

On the surface, the requirement seemed straightforward. But looking further back through the business process revealed that the spreadsheets were themselves being produced by another system.

Rather than making it easier to upload spreadsheets, the better answer was to connect the two platforms directly through an API. The data could then move seamlessly from one system to another. It is a small example of a much bigger lesson.

• Don’t ask: What software solves this problem?
• Ask: Why does this problem exist in the first place?

Businesses need to understand the entire workflow before choosing the technology that sits within it.

More planning now means fewer problems later

Barling agreed that businesses often underestimate the importance of planning.

Drawing on his experience running an e-commerce agency, he argued that the more time invested at the beginning of a technology project, the more time businesses tend to save later.

That means understanding not only what the system needs to do but what information needs to come out of it.

Reporting is a good example.

Barling recalled moving to a new billing system where the underlying processes appeared to work correctly. There was just one problem…

When customers upgraded or downgraded licences, the system recorded the change as one contract being cancelled and another created. That made it difficult to track performance accurately. The process eventually had to be rebuilt, wasting time and losing some data along the way.

The lesson is deceptively simple: define the outcome before you choose the technology.

• What information will you need?
• What metrics matter?
• What decisions will the system help you make?
• How does it connect with everything else already happening inside the business?

Just because you can build it doesn’t mean you should

Then comes another increasingly relevant question: should you buy technology or build it yourself?

With AI and low-code tools making software development increasingly accessible, building bespoke technology can seem attractive. Barling offered a real-life example.

Early in his career, he worked for an e-commerce agency that decided to host customer websites itself to improve margins.

The company had the hardware. It had a talented developer. Technically, it could do it.

Then the servers failed.

Around 300 local businesses suddenly found their websites offline – and the backup system wasn’t working properly either.

Sites took considerable time to restore, some from much older versions, and the damage to the agency’s reputation ultimately affected its growth.

Barling’s takeaway was straightforward: “Just because you can build something doesn’t necessarily mean you should.”

Technology carries responsibility.

Building something means maintaining it, securing it, updating it and having a plan for when things go wrong.

For smaller businesses in particular, Price suggested there is a strong argument for focusing resources on what the company does best and partnering with specialists for the rest.

Technology projects are people projects

Perhaps the most important message from the session had very little to do with software.

Technology only works when people use it.

Price recalled a software implementation that was heading towards failure because employees simply hadn’t bought into the project.

The implementation was stopped, senior leadership intervened and the team was brought together before the process restarted. Only then was the system successfully adopted.

His conclusion was that buy-in cannot exist solely at board level. It needs to run throughout the business. That becomes particularly important as companies explore AI.

There is understandable excitement around what automation can replace, accelerate or simplify. But Hamilton reminded the audience that businesses are not simply collections of systems. They are collections of people.

The better question is therefore not how technology can replace employees, but how it can help good employees become better.

Barling described technology as a way of capturing the knowledge of a company’s strongest people and building it into processes that help raise performance across the wider team.

Price made a similar point. SME employees are already working hard. Asking them simply to work harder is rarely sustainable.

Technology can instead help them work smarter, automating repetitive tasks, speeding up decisions and freeing people to concentrate on the work where they create the most value.

When employees become technology champions

When implementation works, the results can be dramatic.

Price described one successful technology project where employees moved beyond simply accepting a new system and became champions for it. That change in attitude created momentum.

The company subsequently identified another highly manual process involving thousands of incoming letters.

A document management solution was developed that could scan the correspondence, recognise what each letter related to and determine what action was required. Previously, processing a day’s post could take up to a week. With the new system, thousands of letters could be scanned, processed and relevant customer records updated before lunch.

That is technology adoption at its most effective: not adding software for software’s sake, but removing friction from a real business process.

Small efficiencies create big results

Barling offered another example from his own business.

The company had accumulated multiple platforms covering different parts of the customer journey, making it difficult for employees to get a single view of each customer.

So the business implemented Zoho One, bringing CRM, billing, invoicing, reporting and other functions together.

Suddenly, employees could see a customer’s history and relationship with the business in one place. One seemingly tiny feature proved particularly useful.

Account managers could see an outstanding customer balance from within the CRM while speaking to that customer.

Instead of periodically running separate projects to chase unpaid invoices, employees could raise the issue naturally during existing conversations. That helped cash flow.

Individually, efficiencies like that can appear insignificant.

Collect enough of them together and they fundamentally change how effectively a business operates.

Don’t chase the shiniest tool

Naturally, the conversation eventually turned to favourite technology.

Barling admitted to an “unhealthy obsession with AI”, naming Claude as one of his current favourites, while Price highlighted Microsoft Teams for collaboration and Microsoft Copilot as part of his everyday working life.

But their wider advice was more useful than any individual recommendation.

Be curious.

Keep learning.

Don’t be afraid of technology.

And crucially, make sure somebody in the business becomes a genuine super-user of the systems you invest in.

As Barling explained: “The software is the execution.” Ideas still drive the business. Technology should provide the mechanism for turning those ideas into action. That requires businesses to invest not only money in software, but time in understanding how to use it properly.

Pick the outcome before you pick the tool

Hamilton closed the session by pulling together three themes that should probably sit at the heart of any SME technology strategy.

First, prepare. Understand what you want technology to achieve before searching for a solution.

Second, think about interoperability. Twelve systems that cannot communicate with one another are likely to create more chaos, not more efficiency.

And third, keep the human in the loop. Employees need to understand the technology, buy into it and receive the training required to use it effectively.

Businesses should also consider the relationship behind the software. Price encouraged SMEs not to view technology providers simply as places to buy another subscription.

The right partner should help with implementation, understand the company’s objectives and continue supporting the business as it grows.

Because the smartest technology strategy isn’t about having the newest software, the most AI tools or the biggest technology budget.

It’s about knowing what problem you are trying to solve. Then picking the simplest, smartest and most connected way to solve it.

ClearCourse are looking into how businesses across the UK are really using AI. Everyone who completes the survey has the chance to be entered into a prize draw to win a £250 Amazon voucher. Complete the survey here.

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