How much can one IT leader take? If more of your days are spent sacrificing efficiency, quality and profitability, then it’s time to look into business and technology consulting. Working with tech consultants to clarify strategy provides a rudder to navigate shifting winds. 

Does it feel like you’re trapped in technology projects that are ballooning out of control? Worried that with everything going wrong, you’re falling behind the competition? Technology should lift your organization up to achieve more. If you’re ready to swim above water and stop drowning in outdated technology, consulting could help.

With the right technology, your business can remain on top of budgeting concerns while meeting critical goals:

• Cost benefit analysis
• Security and compliance
• IT project management
• Project review to ensure proper timelines and milestones
• Cybersecurity strategy
• Audit preparation and remediation
• Help desk support
• And much more…

Technology in business today continues to impact the world profoundly. Modernization of IT infrastructure generates innovative solutions that allow small to medium enterprises to tap into their full potential. The combination of technologies your company uses determines how solidly you can build and run an application or project.

Get Help Reaching Your Goals and Keeping IT Costs in Check

Partnering with the right business and technology consulting company can help you develop and implement new strategies that will revitalize your company and prepare it for an exciting future. Technology has the power to promote efficiency, productivity and security, all while keeping your costs in check. When you engage the services of an IT consultant, you get skills, experience and resources that are bent toward one outcome: to maximize your technology stack and boost productivity while reducing the cost of expenses.

What’s one thing guaranteed to ruin your bottom line and send IT costs soaring? Outdated technology. An IT consultant can help you come up with the right technology replacement plan to protect your bottom line.

5 Strategic Factors to Consider When Protecting Your Bottom Line

1. A Technology Replacement Plan

Also known as an IT roadmap, the goal of a technology replacement plan is to ensure core technology is always available to meet the demands of your organization’s IT infrastructure and support operational needs on a regular and systematic cycle. A typical plan takes into account your company’s technology needs over the next one, five or even 10 years. 

The advantage to partnering with a business and technology consulting company is that they make it easy to come up with an IT budget so you can set aside money for the equipment you need; instead of running your equipment into the ground and having to replace it when you least expect it. Successful planning of a reliable IT budget should start at least six months before it is necessary to begin spending.

2. Support and Maintenance

Support costs are related to the support and maintenance of your IT environment, network and infrastructure. These are the ongoing expenses required to maintain your current environment and provide adequate user support. Types of support include, but are not limited to:

• Tech guidance and expertise.
• Cloud computing.
• Hardware as a service.
• Endpoint threat monitoring and response.
• Around-the-clock, comprehensive IT support.
• Cybersecurity and data protection.

Hiring a team of technology consultants can help your business achieve the goals that really matter. If your current team just doesn’t have the time or capability to complete the work, you have to find help.  And that help can’t just be a “warm body.” You need professional skills and expertise. Technology staff augmentation services are flexible and can help you meet your immediate and long-term needs with experienced professionals capable of getting the job done right.

3. Outdated Technology

All good things must come to an end. The technology that you use in your organization is going to work exactly as expected for as long as expected. Recent tech articles will inform you that every piece of technical infrastructure you have will slowly start to deteriorate over time. Many manufacturers run “burn-in” tests that are conducted to ensure that a device or system functions properly before it leaves the manufacturing plant or may be part of a repair or maintenance routine. Generally, there are little to no problems detected for a long time after burn-in, but eventually there will be a need for repair or replacement. 

In the world of technology, it is more likely the capacity of a device will be maximized before its lifecycle has been met or exceeded. Being prepared to replace technology before it reaches the end of its lifecycle is a critical piece to IT budgeting.

4. IT Projects

You’re already up to your ears with work, so how can you devote time to major IT projects? Even if you had the time, you might be short on in-house talent and hiring staff for just a single project doesn’t make sense. Still, your long-term success could be suffering due to short-term issues. You need qualified and collaborative reinforcements to break out of this rut.

Relying on the expertise of a business and technology consulting company can help alleviate stress and reduce your margin for error. They help you in considering any projects planned for the coming year, including any infrastructure updates or migrations to cloud computing, full workstation or server replacements and other one-time adjustments to your environment that don’t occur annually. With all strategic initiatives, a tech consultant will help make sure you include labor estimates in your technology replacement plan to help you deliver projects on time and on budget.

5. Emergency Preparedness

The key to a well-formed, thoroughly prepared IT budget is planning for unforeseen events and capacity growth. Most organizations have enough data to make educated guesses about when technologies will need to be replaced. The dollars and cents of this estimate is a relatively simple equation and generally calculates the cost of support against the cost of acquisition. 

It is safe to estimate spending one month’s worth of your organization’s IT support and maintenance costs in the instance of an emergency. When in doubt, defer to the expertise of your technology consultant in this instance.

Business and Technology Consulting: IT Done Right

When you feel hemmed in by challenges, our goal at Afidence is to help you discover what’s possible. Business technology should lift you up, not drag you down. As business advocates and problem solvers, we can’t wait to see you soar.

The adoption of technology solutions allows small and medium-sized enterprises to run as efficiently as larger corporations. Contact us today for technology solutions that digitally transform your business, empower your team and solve challenges in every way critical to helping you succeed and grow.