One place where we see the most confusion around IT infrastructure is figuring out the right amount to spend for specific solutions and overall needs. When organizations spend too little, it causes system inefficiencies and frequently leads to downtime and lost productivity. However, when organizations choose solutions that are more expensive than necessary, it wastes company resources.
Not connecting IT investments to business goals is the underlying situation causing the problem. And this causes the IT team’s incentives to be misaligned with the rest of the business.
Let’s look at security as an example: When asked to upgrade security, the IT team suggests a “bullet-proof” security system that costs $50,000 per year. Without any other direction, their goal is to eliminate as much security risk as possible.
However, when this level of security and expense is not in line with business priorities, management comes back and says that it is too expensive. At that point, the IT team recommends a $1,000 per year solution that does not provide a high enough level of security and puts company and customer data at risk, because they think all management cares about is cost.
To overcome this issue, IT professionals need to understand how security affects the company and what the budget priorities are. It may be the case that the organization needs a $10,000 per year security solution that provides a high level of security, but not as high as a bank would need. When there is a clear understanding of the business goals, your IT team can recommend several appropriate options for the organization and highlight the cost versus performance tradeoffs. Then, management can make an informed decision on the optimal solution.
When you take the time to communicate your business goals to your IT team and work with them to figure out IT priorities, you get much better options for your IT investments.
Improving Your IT Infrastructure
Most businesses can benefit from having someone assess how their IT infrastructure can better support business goals. Skyriver IT helps businesses leverage technology to improve existing processes and ensure you have the right technology plan in place for growth.
If this would be of interest to you, then contact us to schedule a time to talk.
