How can you know if you are making the appropriate judgments when it comes to the IT demands of your company? Here, we look at some of the things to think about.
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Audit your current situation
Make a technology inventory of your company’s current technological infrastructure. Is there any technology in place that you are already using? How effectively does it serve your company’s needs? Consider categorizing all of your current technology into three categories – good, bad and could be improved. This will enable you to determine where the gaps in your technological infrastructure exist. The ability to perceive opportunities for improvement when you are accustomed to obsolete, and often even challenging, working practices might be tough to come by. Consider how you and your staff could make your business procedures more efficient by upgrading the technology that is accessible to you and them.
Will it grow with your business?
Investing in new technology is likely to be an expensive endeavor, so you should think carefully about what you want to purchase. Examining potential purchases in industry-specific business forums can be a valuable approach of evaluating potential purchases. What tools and resources are other, similar small businesses utilizing? Is there anything that they are having trouble with? Or have you noticed that a particular equipment or software package becomes out of date quite quickly?
Regardless of what technology you purchase, there is always the possibility that it will become obsolete sooner than you thought. As a result, you will be stuck with pricey equipment that you will have to either donate, recycle, or sell if this happens. The option of leasing technical equipment to stay up to date with increasingly advanced technology is always available as a means of mitigating the risk associated with this. This, however, comes with its own set of possible drawbacks (such as the possibility of paying more in the long term), and is therefore not suitable for everyone.
What do you need?
This point refers back to the previous point about determining what your company need, but it is significant enough to mention again. Making decisions based on business requirements (rather than merely personal preferences) is critical to the successful implementation of new technology in an organization. Once you have gone on the technological bandwagon, you will quickly realize how quickly things are changing. Only make improvements and purchase gadgets that your company genuinely requires, and devise a complete plan for how and where they will be used in your company’s operations.
In the case of personnel who are always on the move, meeting with clients and conducting business outside of the office, it may be beneficial to invest in technology such as a tablet computer. Additionally, consider thinking outside the box. Despite the fact that you may like a particular package, there may be other, more industry-specific software options accessible to you that will make things run much more smoothly for your company, such as software development methodology.
What happens if it goes wrong?
Technology can and does fail. It is an unavoidable truth of life. If you do not prepare for this possibility, you could find yourself in the position of having to close down your firm completely for an extended length of time, resulting in significant financial losses. Business Impact Analysis is essential if your company is totally reliant on technology. This analysis helps you estimate the repercussions of a business operation being stopped unexpectedly. Making this decision now will assist you in gathering the knowledge you will require in order to design a recovery strategy in the case of a technology disaster.
Disaster recovery plans can include backup power supplies, hardware, and cloud storage, and they can keep you from experiencing disastrous downtime, no matter how small your company is.
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Nice article, thank you