There is one scenario our veteran Technology Consultants see every day. As companies grow or downsize, adapt to market trends, innovate to stay competitive in their industry and retain quality employees, we often find their infrastructure begins to look like one patch job after another. While at some point, almost every business owner or manager needs to make rapid fire changes, an ongoing “roll with the punches” approach to IT Management can have costly and negative impacts on your business.
Just like your accounting team or marketing team builds an annual initiative roadmap, so should your IT team. At least once a year, it is a good idea to have an outside consultant take an unbiased look at how your infrastructure operates. That check up should include some important questions:
Do your customers have a great experience when they communicate with your staff or chat on your website?
Is your team able to make and take calls, chat, text and conduct video calls from anywhere?
Are you losing opportunities outside of regular business hours?
Are you experiencing any downtime that could impact sales and customer service?
Is your network secure?
Is your critical data being scrubbed and securely backed up every day?
Can you scale rapidly and securely?
How are you handling access for remote workers?
Can cloud solutions or AI automations minimize your hardware investment as well as improve security, productivity and job satisfaction?
Are you compliant?
Does it make sense to outsource any portions of your IT management and cyber security?
Is your office and production equipment functioning optimally and securely connected to your network?
Are there any innovative solutions in phone & video hardware, document production & management or mailing solutions that can streamline your business?
Are you paying too much?
If your Technology Consultant isn’t asking this question, it’s time to find a true advocate for your business.
Your trusted advisor should go way beyond helping you pinpoint components of your infrastructure that need improvement. They should assist you identifying areas where you may be spending far too much and give you access to wholesale pricing through a massive national network of providers and suppliers. Imagine cutting your tech spend by 25-35%!
The most important question is: Where would you invest that capital?
