Published on April 3rd, 2019 | by Sunit Nandi

Is Your IT Infrastructure Holding You Back?

You work hard to make your business a success. Your products and services are right on track. You’ve got a growing list of satisfied customers who trust your business. Now it’s time to focus on your business IT infrastructure – is it holding you back from growth?

IT plays a role in every aspect of your business, all the way from hardware to software to how you communicate with both your employees and your customers. If you’re not sure how to improve and expand your IT infrastructure, it’s time to hire consultants like Prosyn who can work with you to decide what upgrades are most beneficial to your company.

One of the basic concepts of updating your IT is to build infrastructure that’s 1) scalable and 2) able to support the continued growth of your business.

When should you upgrade infrastructure?

It can be a fine line between upgrading your IT infrastructure or making it work just a bit longer before you have to invest money and time. If you’re not sure, here are a few guidelines to follow.

Slow performance

One indication an upgrade is necessary is when your software applications are running slow and crashing. Poor performance can be caused by low storage space, cyber security threats, or software running inefficiently. Once performance slows down your business operations, it’s time to upgrade.

Software is nearing end of life

Software has an “end date” built into it by developers so you must upgrade eventually. Simple updates will no longer work and without upgrades, developers will no longer support the software. This means your business is vulnerable to threats and software may no longer meet industry standards.

Insufficient storage space

As your business grows, so will the data and information you store. When you’re getting message alerts that you have insufficient space, it’s time to evaluate your infrastructure. When you don’t have enough space to save your business documents and customer information, you put your company at risk.

Increased IT maintenance costs

The older your IT infrastructure is, the more updates and repairs it needs. When it happens now and then it’s easy to overlook the cost. But when repairs are needed for multiple computers, the cost for IT solutions can start to add up significantly. Then you know it’s time to upgrade. The cost of this upgrade will start paying off immediately as you avoid costs from doing random repairs on different computers.

Below is a list of the technology and tools in your IT infrastructure you can update to optimize your business operations.

Update existing hardware

Your computer hardware is the base of your entire IT infrastructure. If you’re running your own software, you’ll need to consider getting a network server if you have more than five employees. Even if using cloud services, you’ll need to have endpoint hardware so your employees can access data and information on the cloud. Some of the network elements to focus on include updating your current operating system and your network operations.

When you update your hardware, make sure you have scalable equipment you can easily update as your business expands.

Use cloud-based computing

If you’re not already, switch to cloud-based services to reduce some of your operating costs. Moving to the cloud can also improve your business efficiency and give you access to software services that you don’t currently have and perhaps can’t afford otherwise.

Using cloud storage can free up some of your in-house IT infrastructure. When you store some – or all – of your business information and data in the cloud, your business computers will not only run faster, but you’ll be able to save costs by having fewer computers in-house.

Review your software and integrate

You probably have a few business software tools to help you run and manage your business. But do you have too many? One mistake many companies make is having multiple software platforms, which means they waste time moving data from one software application to the other and may lose information while doing so. Consider updating your infrastructure by integrating what information you can from multiple software platforms to one or – at most – two. This will save you time and money when it comes to your business processes.

Before integrating software, be sure that you have a strategy in place, which includes talking to vendors who can manage the integration for you as well as help you with a plan for training your employees to use any new software interfaces.

Update your IT security

The bigger and more successful your business becomes, the more you’ll need to focus on security to keep your data safe from threat. Not only will you have more employees, you’ll also have more customer information you need to protect.

Many smaller businesses think a security breach will never happen to them. But statistics show that 43 percent of cyberhackers target small businesses. The reason for this is that smaller companies don’t always invest in adequate security systems.

Make sure your security processes are in place and that you’re using up to date antivirus software to reduce your risk of infection. Additionally, train your employees in correct security practices, such as using strong passwords and the risk of opening email from questionable sources.

Let your business grow!

Don’t let your IT infrastructure hold you back from building a successful business. When your infrastructure starts having performance issues that negatively impact your business, it’s time to evaluate and come up with a new strategy. Determine what your infrastructure needs – an update, an upgrade, or a complete replacement. Whatever you decide to do will be worth it as your business grows and becomes more successful.

Tags: holding back, infrastructure

About the Author

Sunit Nandi I'm the leader of Techno FAQ. Also an engineering college student with immense interest in science and technology. Other interests include literature, coin collecting, gardening and photography. Always wish to live life like there's no tomorrow.