How to Find Alignment in IT Infrastructure Management
Technology and business needs are constantly evolving, and as they do, companies must ensure IT infrastructure and overall operations maintain alignment. However, misalignment is all too easy when technology is constantly updating.
What Types of Changes Occur in Infrastructure?
Companies’ most common mistake is not understanding how much, how often, or what types of changes occur within their infrastructures. Many organizations do not have the right level of visibility and control of change, and that’s the root of most IT-related issues. A single unforeseen change can create a domino effect of other issues.
The Problem With Manuel Tracking
Often, companies deal with change by keeping track of IT resources in spreadsheets. You would be surprised how some multibillion-dollar firms still rely on Excel to track what they have and where things are. Ultimately, however, the Excel files are outdated the second they document things.
Manual tracking also means an increased likelihood of miscounting, mistracking, and other human error mistakes. This unnecessarily creates more work for everyone involved.
Typically, the various teams in IT, from server and application to data center infrastructure and so on, all rely on different tools to get a sense of their environments. These teams do not rely on a single source of data to make decisions, and strings of data are lost easily. This is why it’s crucial to align your IT infrastructure with your business.
What Companies Miss When Not Prioritizing IT Infrastructure
Disconnects occur when companies don’t maintain their IT infrastructure. Outages can cost a company about $ 300,000 per hour on average.
Aside from outages, when brownouts occur (when computer systems, websites, and apps have slow response times), consumers often abandon ship. After all, nearly 60% of customers will exit a page that takes longer than three seconds to load. Without proper IT investments, organizations can lose present and future business along with their reputations.
How IT Organizations Help
The best chief information officers are focused on three things: how to save money, how to make money, and how to stay out of trouble.
Needs for IT Infrastructure Management
Proper IT infrastructure management tools look at gaps and can save companies money by creating more efficient systems and supporting new business initiatives. New technologies and processes help employees work more efficiently as well.
Full Visibility and Compliance
With better IT, companies provide full visibility to abide by external and internal compliance mandates, helping stay out of any legal trouble. IT technology can also report and block malware and data breaches, which can be costly for any organization.
How to Boost Your IT Infrastructure
Here is how you can help get your business and its IT infrastructure on the same page.
1. Get better single-source visibility.
More information and visibility that all teams rely upon collectively will allow organizations and companies to make smarter decisions faster.
Greater visibility into regulated entities helps improve the enforcement of rules and regulations. Clear rules and processes can eliminate potential arguments or concerns. The foundation of greater visibility requires harnessing true and accurate data. Once that’s set, transparency about processes and analytics solutions can help build stronger business cultures.
2. Invest in more automation.
Specialized IT software firms have invested heavily to help IT teams collect, discover, normalize, categorize, and enhance data based on patented technologies. Recently, artificial intelligence has enabled teams to speed up work that would take years to do manually.
Automation
Automation-based technologies help companies streamline processes and tasks to pick up speed and save on labor costs. While machines can’t replace every job, they can help you free up your time to check other tasks off your to-do list.
3. Improve your customer service.
Customer service professionals should be trained on not only the basics of your company but also how to help customers handle issues and identify IT-related problems and solutions. When the two are aligned, there is no miscommunication, and everyone in your company is on the same page.
Get Your IT infrastructure up to date
Ultimately, your company misses out when your IT infrastructure is not up to date. The connection between the two is crucial but not impossible to achieve. A few intentional steps in investing toward a better IT infrastructure can change the course of your company’s success moving into the future, so don’t delay — because the technology won’t.
Image Credit: Christina Wocintechchat; Unsplash; Thank you!
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