19Sep 2011

IT’s reputation at stake

Cloud, Financial Planning by Digital Planet

It can at times be difficult for IT departments and CIOs to keep up with new technologies, as they have to consider budgets, user impact and timelines. It is simply not realistic to keep upgrading hardware and software constantly. In an ideal World, moving at the same pace as technology would make sure that the firm and IT would be fully up-to-date.

However, you need to consider the impact changes has on the business and it’s end-users (internal and external). Disruption when hardware is being replaced, new training required for new software and the pressure of keeping the IT budget in line – not overspending. CIO’s have to decide what’s best for the organisation, and this might at times look as if they are slowing down the agility and up-to-date technology as some end-users might expect.

As a result, some end-users might actually label IT as being slow or inflexible. The challenge for IT is to deploy up-to-date systems, while still stay within budget.

The last thing a CIO wants to hear is that his/her department is hindering or being considering slow.

So, to make sure your IT department isn’t considered slow, you should review your readiness on following topics. I’m not saying that by looking at or working on these topic you will be alright. It still has to be quality service and reliable solutions deployed.

Join the APP World

With the majority of consumers using mobile devices capable of running a small company, and having access to information anywhere in the World, being able to develop or publish an APP could be essential to the organisation. It can be done in-house or by a 3rd party, but the important thing is that you attempt to join in. However, just like any other service, make sure it’s thought through and developed well.

Social Networking

There are multiple ways for an organisation to promote itself, and some of these are almost free. Facebook, Twitter and LinkedIn are some of the core tools available, where companies can promote themselves. It does come with certain considerations.

You need to assign a reliable resource to manage and monitor the social networks, making sure that responses are dealt with and that quality information is shared with the community. If such a person is not responsible for the sites, then it will quickly dwindle away and customers will not come back to visit the site.

Sharing the load

It is worthwhile to explore moving elements of the infrastructure to a shared datacenter, load balancing means that the vendor will be responsible for managing the infrastructure. This will drastically improve turnaround time of adding new storage or a new server, as these tasks are now outsourced and are managed using SLAs.

Digital Planet can certainly work with you to discuss the various options, and find a solution that’ll match your requirements.

Consumerisation

Allowing staff to add bring their own gadgets into work, and connecting these to the infrastructure for primarily mail, is a growing trend – especially in the US. Companies realise that it’s employees want to have the latest gadgets, so it needs to work with employees on adding these securely. It becomes less of a burden for the organisation’s IT budget, as employees are now responsible for both hardware and software.

It’s the security that might cause some headaches, but most of these can be dealt with with some cloud setup, allowing employees to access company data through secure connections into a cloud / virtual system.

For most part, Evros and Digital Planet can assist you with discussing the best strategy for your organisation, ensuring that you get value for money and that you have access to latest technologies such as cloud offerings and system developments.

Contact us to schedule a time to discuss your ideas and see how we can match up solutions to meet your requirements and your strategy.