Do firms have the same IT needs?

Sponsored content by Redcoin

What makes your businesses IT requirements the same as everyone else’s?

Alex Blackwell replies:

THE more I ask this question, the clearer and more confident I become that it is not your IT investment that defines your business processes, but your business processes that define your IT investments. Regardless of employee size, industry, geographical location, aspirations, each business has its own personal business system, that has been set up and maintained by various individuals over the course of the businesses lifetime.

Due to the nature of each business model, the availability and choice of IT solutions and bespoke business processes, we often encounter uncertainty when it comes to retiring legacy, unsupported software because ‘it’s the way we do it’.

An application can become so engrained into a business that there are often custom-builds and work-arounds to keep these applications live. Add to that the familiarity and consistency for staff, the thought of change is daunting, time consuming and often expensive.

Maintaining these applications may patch the cracks of one business challenge but cause multiple others when it comes to compatibility and efficiency, impacting business continuity and connectivity for a hybrid (office based/mobile) workforce.

So, we sit in a state of conflict. The industry is progressing at an alarming rate, the reliance of a lean and efficient business model requires change to be maintained, however the fear and/or impact of any change leaves uncertainty in the minds of the business stakeholders.

Swapping out one IT component could unsettle another causing a domino effect to run across your network. It has become normal to see additional solutions being purchased to address each new business requirement, increasing the IT overheads, management and service contracts from third parties, to ensure that everything works ‘as it should’.

The more you build up around this legacy application, the harder it becomes to move away from it, and although covered, the cracks remain.

Going back to my original question, the answer seems to be that your requirements aren’t the same at all.

Everyone will have a unique network that needs to be understood and mapped out, to give visual context of the business actions and outcomes, along with any bottlenecks or waste that occurs.

It may be that there are multiple licenses that deliver the same function, a specific application demands a higher volume of service time from a 3rd party provider to maintain or is responsible for a far greater impact on staff productivity due to time taken to become available. All of the above impacts an organisations output and profitability.

So as we come back out of lockdown, into a largely uncertain and unfamiliar time, it also gives us a good reason to take a step back and analyse our businesses to adopt change and advance into this new generation of business.

Redcoin deliver detailed reviews and audits to give you valuable and relevant IT insight and advice to assist with scoping, delivering and maintaining your business’s IT strategy. If any of the above resonates with you and you would be interested in finding out how we can assist you further, please get in touch.