6 Ways Large Companies Can Modernize Their IT Architecture
How much technical debt has accumulated within your enterprise? For many enterprises, IT infrastructure grows organically, rather than strategically. Improper planning during growth leads to a cumbersome, difficult-to-manage system – and often sends enterprises researching how they can get away from the bloat and bring order to their enterprise IT architecture.
Take Advantage of Cloud Solutions as You Grow
Perhaps the most impactful change you can make in your organization is a switch to cloud solutions. Growing companies often underestimate or overestimate the amount of IT capability they need, which can be disastrous with physical infrastructure: You might wind up with rooms full of unused servers, or struggle at peak capacity before you can add new ones. Decision paralysis can lead to companies avoiding upgrades entirely.
Using cloud solutions makes it easy to scale up and down as needed. When your business needs it, you can requisition additional resources. When your business no longer needs it, you can downsize your enterprise IT architecture without any major issues.
Document Your Business Processes
A large business can often have issues with people assuming something else is another person’s responsibility. Healthy, comprehensive documentation will ensure nothing slips between the cracks. Have departments write down their business processes, drilling down to individual employees producing their own documentation.
A review of this documentation may reveal redundancies within your enterprise IT architecture: processes that are being completed and then completed again by multiple employees. Documentation is the first step towards streamlining your organization.
Automate the Processes That You Can
Technology has advanced significantly, including automation technology. When processes can be automated, they should be. Tasks such as taking backups, transferring data, and updating software, can all be either automated entirely or outsourced through enterprise managed services. The more processes and tasks executed automatically, the fewer administrative hours you need. This frees you to either reduce your workforce or reassign them to more valuable things.
Automation can save companies up to $4 million on average, annually. Alone, that’s a reason for many businesses to switch to a newer infrastructure. Enterprise managed services can help your business set up its automation processes.
Don’t Be Afraid to Outsource IT Tasks Rather Than Hiring New People
Outsourced IT teams tend to bring instant expertise and infrastructure of their own, and can help you build more permanent structures for the future. When you hire new people, you need to train them and keep them. If you can’t retain your people, you may find yourself in an endless cycle of training. On the other hand, outsourced IT teams will provide a continuously professional level of service, and you’ll only pay for the services that you actually need.
Outsourced teams are also highly flexible. If you no longer need the team after a project is over, the team can be downsized easily without having to let employees go. At will, the team can be upsized again, if it’s found that it’s needed.
Streamline Your Application Integrations
When looking at your company’s processes, there are likely a multitude of different software systems that are integrated together within a single infrastructure. Streamlining application integration will make sure that data is synced across different devices, that devices work seamlessly together, and that users are able to easily use the applications that they need.
Proper application integration significantly reduces the amount of help desk and troubleshooting work necessary to maintain the system. It also reduces frustration for employees, which improves productivity as well as employee satisfaction and retention.
Get an Independent IT Assessment
An objective third party can be a huge boon, avoiding “oh, we’ve always done it this way” rationalizations and helping guide you to better, healthier solution. Through an independent IT assessment, your organization can pinpoint major pain points and learn to address them. IT audits will identify issues in everything from productivity to security, and can make actionable suggestions on how to improve.
Many businesses can benefit from an impartial third-party assessment. Over time, businesses and their internal departments can start cutting corners or building up redundancies. An assessment cuts into the core of a company’s potential inefficiencies. Regular assessments can reassure a business that previous audits have been followed.
For many businesses, tech bloat is simply something that happens over time. But it isn’t something that your enterprise has to live with. If you think managed services or outsourced IT could help get your business’ tech needs under control, contact Red River today.
