The 5 Warning Signs Your IT Model is Out of Date, and What to Do About It

The Out of Date Signs

All things seem to atrophy.  At some point, you will need to a new car.  Same goes with your DVD player.  When these products become outdated, you need to upgrade to something better.  Your information technology (IT) is the same. There’s no better time than now to take a look at your IT model to determine if it’s giving you the bang for your buck — or sending you to the poor house.   Here are 5 warning signs that your IT model is out of date:

  1. You have many servers and equipment that need care and feeding – If you are hosting or holding equipment in your data center, that’s a pretty good clue that you’re still in yesteryear.  As you can imagine, hosting equipment is costly, time consuming, and takes up space.  It was the way that IT had to be done in the early internet years – but unless you are a Fortune 500 company, we’ve since moved on.
  2. Your network access model is convoluted – If you’re using a virtual private network, or have to use other kinds of exotic network to access your business software, your IT model needs restructuring.
  3. Your apps require special software to get remote access  – In many cases, apps require a Microsoft terminal server, which is a way to get Windows applications to work over the internet. However, if you’re using this remote screen technology, it’s a sure sign your software is out of date. What you want is a fully compliant web application that works across all browsers and requires no special software to run that is completely secure.  And this also opens up the space to work on Mobile and Tablet systems.
  4. Multiple departments are using various kinds of business applications – This can be anything from using one .NET Windows application in one area of the business, while another is using Excel spreadsheets and yet another is using a disconnected accounting system (such as QuickBooks). What happens here is that each department is operating independently — which means they are not powerfully communicating with one another.  It’s a clear sign that the model is outdated, and there hasn’t been any thought about scalable enterprise capacities.
  5. Management can’t get to information – If management is having a tough time getting to important business information, trying to get at the data, join it together, summarize it to make sense of it with alerts and notifications, then this is sign of an out of data model.  The IT answer to get at this information requires you to invest in a building a data warehouse system (or sometimes called business intelligence).  Stop!  This investment can be avoided with the proper business application that is well integrated.

What to do to get your IT up to date

As we’re seeing more and more, the Cloud is dramatically loweing IT costs and taking care of the outdated models of the past. In my previous articles on cloud services, you can see that switching to a cloud based solution will solve the first three problems noted which includes removing the issue of servers, remote access, and secure information.  For the next two, which is about consolidating software systems and linking information together with strong reporting, there are a variety of cloud based solutions that will take care of these problems.  NetSuite is a clear winner with its combined CRM and ERP system and first class eCommerce offering.

In summary, two things to ask yourself when have have an outdated IT system:

  1. What can the Cloud offer to help be avoid wasteful IT costs?
  2. What business system is fully integrated?
Should you be contemplating these concerns, read my articles on selecting an ERP and CRM system as a guide.   Let’s have conversation about your outdated IT model.
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Marty Zigman

Holding all three official certifications, Marty is regarded as the top NetSuite expert and leads a team of senior professionals at Prolecto Resources, Inc. He is a former Deloitte & Touche CPA and has held CTO roles. For over 30 years, Marty has produced leadership in ERP, CRM and eCommerce business systems. Contact Marty to set up a conversation.

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