Maximizing IT: Three Essential Strategies for Your Company

In the old days, IT was just there to, you know, fix things. You remember - "Have you tried turning it off and on again?" Not that rebooting doesn't work - it works a lot, actually - but your IT team can and should be doing a lot more than just reminding you of that fact. Here are some simple but wildly effective steps your IT crew should be taking care of.

Evaluating Your Workspaces

From your desks to your conference areas, your workspaces define how productive you can be from hour to hour and day to day. You may not have stopped to think about it recently, but your standards for workstations, laptops, screens, and even keyboards can make a huge difference in what people can do with their time. Your shared spaces are equally important - are they set up to provide the kind of privacy, efficiency and connectivity that you need, or are you dealing with annoying and outdated technology? Depending on the complexity of your organization, you may have some permanently remote employees, employees who travel a great deal, or a team that is a little different from the rest of the group. Your IT crew will know what is out there that can make the entire group more productive. Don't be alarmed at a potential huge bill. The IT support group can help you budget for change and work it into the standards over time. One great way to work on common spaces is to evaluate change in the context of a move or expansion. Your IT provider should be able to level up technology for shared areas like conference rooms, while saving you money and building in flexibility.

Securing Your Supply Chain

If you are like most people, most of your software is delivered to you on the web these days. The vendors who provide for you, from Google to Microsoft and beyond, are part of your software supply chain. Your vendors, as amazing as they are, have to be secure so that you are secure, too. But you, who are probably not a cybersecurity expert, may not be able to tell when your vendors are secure! That's why you have great technology support professionals who are ideally suited to guide you. They can evaluate your vendor relationships and tell you who are the riskiest based on how you use different products in your business. Depending on your risks, the IT pros can then look at various documents, resources and analytics and help you evaluate the providers' risk posture. Knowing what you are dealing with in this regard is half the battle, because you can make risk-based and reasonable decisions about the software vendor. And when it's renewal time, you will know what questions to ask. 

Training

There are tons of YouTube videos out there, and you can Google or ChatGPT almost anything and find a few steps to follow if you know the right search terms. But your solution is only going to be the solution to the question you know to ask. Your IT pros have a leg up on you: they have seen this before. When you ask a question, they are hearing the question behind your question - the reason you are actually asking. They may be able to provide a solution that solves more than the problem you're thinking of. That's the value in professional IT training. The solutions you don't know exist, to problems you haven't quite thought of yet, are presented to you so that you can implement them into your business. Trainings should be customized to your team, no longer than 45 minutes including question time, and should include materials for reference after the session.