Strategic IT Planning & Budget Review
As the end of the year is nearing, it’s a good time to re-evaluate your technology to determine cost saving and revenue generating opportunities as it related to your 2022 strategic goals.
We know it’s not easy to find time to do this on your own, and we’re here to help. Here are some recommendations for the best way to tackle IT in your strategic planning.
Annual Technology Review
The key to getting your technology to work for you instead of the other way around is to understand your financial goals and plans in the next 12-18 months.
Understanding the big picture allows for the ability to consider how technology will support those respective goals. Doing so will help you identify what new technology is needed and what may need to be “right-sized” to reduce costs. Additionally, it allows you to circle back and look at your current technology that you may be under-utilizing. We commonly find overspending on software licenses, telecommunications and even internet bandwidth.
Preventing Common Technology Problems
Below are two examples of new initiatives that can save you time, money and aggravation in 2022.
Back-Up Plan, System & Process
Having an effective back-up plan is critical to protecting against data loss and ransomware attacks. Recently, we helped a law firm recover missing documents by restoring from backup when an employee accidentally deleted some folders on their network. Having this peace of mind is priceless, though it’s also cost-effective.
Many organizations are not backing up at all or only back up what’s on-premise and haven’t tested their restoring process in a while, which could lead to unpleasant surprises.
We use a cloud service to back up all client systems, software and data in Office 365, SharePoint, email, and OneDrive, just to name a few. In addition to backing up everything you have on-premise, we can also back up everything you have in the cloud. Doing so is your best insurance against a ransomware attack.
Moving to VOIP
Simply put: any organization not using VOIP can reduce their telecommunications budget to a fraction of what they are spending today with no loss of voice quality and the benefit of numerous features that streamline workflows and drive more effective communication with customers, employees and stakeholders.
Streamline Manual Processes
The advent of Microsoft Power BI and Power Apps are an incredibly powerful and cost-effective tool set for automatically consolidating, processing and reporting on your data. These tools streamline manual, time-intensive and error-prone workflows for a fraction of what most other software costs.
Strategic IT Planning & Budgeting Support
Let GO Technology Group help ensure your technology infrastructure is fully evaluated in your strategic planning and budgeting process for 2022, to protect against future IT problems and enable you to seize new opportunities.