There’s real danger if you mismanage your IT department by the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” rule.
Too many businesses don’t realize their IT is broken until it is far too late. We’re not talking about aging hardware that’s about to crash, that’s bad enough, but the real pitfall is secret decay from within that most IT managers and business owners miss completely.
If you want to transform your IT from an expensive, high-maintenance paperweight into a profit center, here are the five warning signs that your IT model is outdated and what to do about it:
- Equipment Maintenance: You have lots of equipment and servers that need care and feeding. If you have a lot of hosting or equipment at your location or data center, you’re not part of the 21st century.
- VPN and Networking Software: You are using a virtual private network; or you have to use exotic network software that is troublesome, hard to use and costly.
- Terminal Services or Citrix: Your applications require special software to get access to them remotely. For instance, Microsoft Terminal Server is an outdated software. At a minimum, you need a fully compliant web application that works across all browsers, requires no special software to run and is completely secured.
- Data Held Hostage by Departments: You have multiple departments that have all kinds of different business applications, they are each doing their own thing and don’t talk to each other very well.
- Can’t get Reports or Queries: It’s difficult for management to get to information; to query it; to get reports, alerts and notifications when important business things are going on in their environment. It’s difficult for them to create a dashboard. With the wrong software, you’ll have to invest in a data warehouse or business intelligence. You’ll have to make a big investment to gather all that intelligence and centralize it. That could be avoided with the right kind of business applications.
The big trouble using functioning but outmoded technology is all the hidden costs and lost efficiency. You may be damaging your business in ways you may not recognize by not pulling the plug on outdated IT. Here’s one cautionary tale to consider…
One company came to us using outdated IT and didn’t realize that their horribly designed system was directly responsible for the company losing hundreds of thousands of dollars for three years straight. Once the company modernized using cloud computing, they were able to achieve tremendously increased efficiencies and for the first time in years, sold out of their inventory beating their competition during a very down market in their sector.
Cloud computing is dramatically lowering the cost. You can get rid of the servers, of the special network stuff, and you can use web browsers to securely get at information. Streamlining and simplifying your infrastructure allows companies to focus on what makes them profitable.
Next, a fully integrated business application, like NetSuite, allows you to be more nimble and responsive to the market. You get more value out of your headcount because information is at everyone’s fingertips with easy reporting and up to the minute dashboards for the metrics you care about most.
If your IT system is giving you headaches instead of answers, let us show you how to do IT better.
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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