Looking for some top tips on how to maximise the potential of your IT department from an expert ICT consultancy firm? Today is your lucky day.
Time is money. A lack of efficiency means wasted time. Wasted time means wasted money. When thinking about your ICT processes, this is the only thing you ever really need consider.
Too many businesses fail at one simple task: improving their IT systems as time goes on. Through our ICT consultancy work, we’ve seen countless companies bleeding profits thanks to a lack of efficiency in their computer-based work.
The times are constantly changing, which means work environments should be adapting regularly to take advantage of the gifts technology just keeps giving. If you are concerned that your IT systems aren’t up to scratch, here are 5 ways to improve your setup.
1. Employee the Use of Data Cabling
Most companies use WiFi as a way of having their computers communicate. It seems the norm, right? Considering all households follow the same practice. The problem is, offices aren’t like personal homes. You have a lot more people, using a lot more data, transferring a huge quantity of files. In this situation, WiFi is not the best and most efficient method of creating a computer network: data cabling is.
Data cabling connects all of your business computers’ hardware together through a single wired system. Cables provide a much higher speed of network access than wireless channels, allowing for effortless data sharing and speeding up your processes massively.
2. Set Up Your Own Business Servers
All your company data has to be stored somewhere. Your invoice documents, your training guides, your customer information, your employee discount scheme, your website code. Anything that is a file on a computer has to be housed somewhere.
For personal users, computer storage is enough, but for businesses, you need something a lot bigger. You need servers.
Businesses now have two options: house their own servers or use third-party ones. While many businesses opt for the latter, we recommend you choose to set up your own. Here’s why:
- Data is always accessible
- You don’t have to store critical customer and company data off-site
- You don’t need the internet to access your data
- More cost-effective long term
3. Keep Hardware Updated
It is essential that hardware is regularly updated. We all know that computers evolve at a rate faster than any of us can really keep up with, but that doesn’t mean you should still be operating on hardware manufactured in 2010.
As computers age, they slow. This can be due to improper maintenance, but it can also be due simply to parts starting to wear out and become inefficient at their task. A slower computer means slower operating abilities. As time goes on, you’ll also find software requires more of your computers, which means outdated hardware simply cannot cope with the requirements of your fancy new programs.
Updating your hardware every few years might seem expensive, but so are the slowdowns that come with poor ICT efficiency.
4. Keep Software Updated
It’s no good updating your hardware if you are going to stick with software built in the same era as the first space shuttle.
Outdated software has many disadvantages, including:
- Slowing systems down
- A lack of features
- Incompatibility with other programs
To improve your IT processes, you need to keep your software updated. With new software comes that increase in efficiency you need to keep your business running like clockwork. Innovations in design often mean newer software is much more intuitive and easy to use, while new features formed around technological advancements can improve your business processes no end.
5. Utilise the Cloud
So, we’ve been telling you to move all your business data movement through cabling in your building and set up onsite servers, so why are we now telling you to get hooked into the cloud?
Well, the cloud — a term for data stored online — is a very powerful IT tool when used in the right way. Using the cloud is not about speed and efficiency in terms of uploading, sending and storing data, but it is a vital tool when it comes to simple access.
Files on the cloud can be accessed by any of the team, anywhere in the world. They can also be collaborated on, shared and edited by users in different locations. If you have employees that sometimes work remotely, or you regularly work with other businesses and share important documents and data, then the cloud is a vital tool in your business arsenal.
Rather than emailing Word documents, you can send over links to live files. It’s faster, more accessible and, of course, boosts that efficiency level we are looking to improve.