Tips For Reducing The Load Of The IT Department
A Complicated And Busy Operational Environment
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Here’s the truth: your IT team will almost always be overworked, and for the most part, they’re probably not going to perform to your expectations. Some will, but even the best can only do so much with what they have available. If you’ve got an internal server array keeping your business online in terms of a network, that’s going to be a full-time job to maintain.
Hardware must be acquired, it must be shipped, it must be installed in a location conducive to technological homeostasis—that means not too hot or cold; though colder is better. You need a backup system in case of emergency, attack, or user error. Operating systems must be managed and updated. Firewalls and antivirus protocols must be put into place and managed.
Proactive monitoring and support of your network may be necessary at an internal level, and that’s pretty much a singular tasks. From there, naturally, troubleshooting will be necessary. Sometimes hardware systems will fail, sometimes personnel will make errors requiring IT assistance.
Contending With A Catch-Up Reality
When you boil it all down, the majority of what internal IT people do involves catch-up, or treading water. Core operational prerogatives of your company pertaining to technology go by the wayside. If IT people don’t keep your business ship “afloat”, it can go nowhere; so instead of soaring out to sea under full-sail, it slowly limps from the bay with internal IT.
What needs to be done is the elimination of unnecessary tasks and modes of technological infrastructure from internal operations. You need to unfetter your IT people so they can perform their best. This will also save you money—or it can, anyway. Consider cloud computing, as an example.
With the cloud, it’s possible to outsource many internal network operations. A design business can use cloud apps for design purposes rather than on-site server arrays. They get more speed, security, dependability, and reliability at less cost—as a bonus, internal IT people are freed up to help your business operate at optimum.
VCIO, or Virtual Chief Information Officer, services can also free up your internal CIO. Some CIOs are under the misapprehension that an outsourced VCIO will take their job. This isn’t true. An outsourced VCIO through the right MSP will simply handle infrastructural minutiae of everyday operation, as outlined earlier, allowing on-site CIOs to focus on core operational prerogatives.
Outsourcing Considerations And Application Rationalization
Now certainly, outsourcing your operations to the cloud may reduce the personnel necessary for internal IT maintenance. But for your company, this will represent an operational cost reduction. That being said, making the full cloud switch can itself be complicated and expensive. This must be done when the time is right, and with proper planning.
In the meantime, freeing up internal IT teams through reduced load can be accomplished through redundancy elimination. Many technology functions are redundantly copied over the course of regular operations. Such redundancies clog up the network, but unless they’re identified and eliminated, it’s hard to tell what may or may not be redundant. You might start with applications.
You need to justify application use and get rid of unnecessary software. An average company may have 500 or more apps, and use less than half of them. This is redundant to a degree. ThinkWGroup.com offers some sage advice in their article: Application Rationalization: What Is It And Why Your Business Needs It. Cutting unnecessary apps reduces the load of IT professionals.
What you might do, to help determine whether applications are being properly used, or are irrelevant, is monitor them through the cloud. There are many different ways to approach this; which best matches your operation will certainly depend on your operation.
Giving IT Personnel The Tools They Need To Succeed
IT departments are filled with professional individuals who have a passion for technology, and want to find exciting new breakthroughs which propel your business to new heights. Unfortunately, these talented people are often playing catch-up so long, they become used to the grind and eventually their creative spark dims considerably.
If you can eliminate redundancies, outsource where necessary, and shift focus to core operations for internal IT people, you’ll give them an operational atmosphere where they’re freed up to succeed, helping you maximize the personnel investment you’ve made in them.
