Business is never quite as simple as it’s made out to be, and nowhere is this more true than with your organization’s IT. Today we will be covering some of the most important parts of your IT’s decision making that will need to be addressed, questions and concerns included, especially in regard to business-critical functions.

Scrutinize Your Security

Before you implement a new solution, be sure to consider your organization’s cybersecurity needs. Ask yourself if it’s something that you can implement without compromising your organization’s security. Cyberattacks can create a considerable financial burden for your business. After all, a business is still a business, no matter what kind of data it stores or how large its workforce or client base is. It might lessen the damage done, but it’s certainly not any consolation for still exposing data to threats--especially because the data stored by businesses tends to be sensitive in nature. You need to do everything you can to make sure that any solution you implement can be done so without your data being placed at risk.

Consider Your Data, Too

You also need to be aware of what your data is telling you. If you leverage enterprise resource planning solutions to provide insight into your organization’s functionality, you can use this information to improve your operations. Therefore, you should pay attention to whether or not the solution you want to implement will actually be beneficial. You should still be careful, however, about leaning on your data to make all decisions, as there might be too many concepts in motion to provide accurate data. You might even wind up implementing a solution that does exactly the opposite of what you want it to do. In other words, you want to know which data is valuable and which won’t yield results.

Reflect On Your Business

Any new system you implement for your organization needs to fit properly from an operational standpoint. To this end, you need to understand your current systems and workflows. Consider how the solution you want to implement will benefit the current state of things. Will it resolve critical workflow issues? Will it save time and resources? Will it scale according to your future needs? All of this must be considered, as well as how accessible support is. The last thing you want to do is to implement a solution that doesn’t have support readily available when it’s needed most. Finally, be sure to consider how your employees will react to the new solution, as it will only be effective if your employees are able to leverage it to their advantage.

Consider All of Your Options

Before investing in any solution, be sure to consider not just what you have in your office currently, but other solutions on the market. After all, there’s no reason to purchase that new network switch if a better, more dynamic option will be available in three months. Of course, it’s not always this simple, as you need to consider the costs of new technology, implementing the solution itself, and any kind of operational costs that are associated with it. If waiting on the solution isn’t going to create a detriment to your business, then perhaps that is the more cost-effective option.

Of course, certain regulations might force your hand, and you can’t let an outdated solution put you at risk of failing a compliance audit. What we like to recommend is to lay out everything that’s needed to be known in a cost-benefit analysis. 415 IT can help you identify this important information. To learn more, reach out to us at (415) 295-4898.