Back in January, we published “IT Outsourcing Trends for 2022,” to help business owners prepare for what was to come on the technology front this year. One of the biggest IT trends was outsourcing IT support itself. Between a workforce that is toggling a line between working in the office and at home, the continuing bottleneck in global logistics, a Russian invasion, a down market and an overall sense of uncertainty (or even outright dread), the importance of IT support and consulting to a business’s efficiency has become too specialized and too forward thinking for most to handle with only in-house staff.
We thought it prudent to revisit our original list to help you use business IT consulting to position your company at mid-year to ride out the second half of 2022.
Are your employees going back to the office? Are they staying there? Either way, get an IT security assessment.
2022 started with a surge of the omicron variant, and now BA.2 and other variants are spreading across the East Coast. There are predictions that this fall and winter will bring a wave of new infections. It’s early to predict, but it’s critical for businesses to be prepared for every possible scenario.
Businesses are all over the board when it comes to remote work options. Some are still remote. Some are hybrid. Some are in office. Some have gone fully remote by choice or necessity to attract talent to fill job openings.
Dealing with a remote workforce remains an issue for 2022 and very possibly beyond. If you haven’t already, it’s time to lean on business IT consulting services to ensure your employees have the tools and support in place they need to be productive without exposing your company to the risk of a data breach.
Regardless of your employees’ work location, having a business IT consulting firm conduct an IT security assessment is a good place to start. A comprehensive IT security assessment should cover five key areas: your network, hardware, software, cloud services and company policies and processes. Remote workforce, pandemic or whatever comes up next, your company will be ready because you’ve been proactive all along with your IT security.
Schedule an IT audit to determine the strength and reliability of your current technology infrastructure.
An IT audit, when performed by business IT consultants/database administrators, accesses your company’s data access, storage, backup and security, plus servers and their performance. With new technology and the need to have a solid, reliable infrastructure to weather whatever happens this year, this audit is designed to find any improvements that could be made. Once upgrades are in place, ongoing support keeps everything and everyone connected and protected.
From a network administration perspective, an IT audit evaluates software, hardware and LAN/WAN protocols to evaluate if they are still your best options for minimizing downtime and glitches in your employee and operation workflows.
Listen to your business IT consultant’s advice on what to move to the cloud.
To save time and resources, businesses are migrating what they can to the cloud, including backups (but keep an air-gapped tape backup setup on site, too), disaster recovery, software, files and email. Especially email. Not only is moving to the cloud driven by the need for tighter security and data protection, it mitigates threats of breaches and ransomware.
Cost and performance of operating in the cloud is attractive to business owners who quickly see measurable savings when compared to keeping their networks on site, and employees can work more efficiently from anywhere with a network connection.
Moving to the cloud does require working closely with a business IT consulting firm to avoid hiccups in the process. Rely on your consultant’s expertise to develop a cloud migration approach that is based on your desired outcomes, solving your most pressing issues and ensuring the end result is positioned for long-term success.
Always keep cybersecurity top of mind.
As soon as one cyber threat is over another one emerges. Then there are the threats that come from within; employees who inadvertently click a link or open a file they shouldn’t. Even after you’ve conducted a security audit, you’ve made changes to protect your data and have trained your employees on best practices, cybersecurity must still be top of mind every day.
Want to learn more about how Invision business IT consulting can help your business be best prepare for the rest of 2022, contact us and we’ll make a plan.
