At the end of each year, we all engage in planning for the future. New Year’s resolutions can be about money, making time for hobbies, or personal goals but we also spend time planning how we want our businesses to grow in the coming year. We wanted to give you a few things to think about that will help your technology support your business.
Standardizing Hardware
Many organizations, especially smaller nonprofits, take an ad-hoc approach to technology. This often results in a mixture of company and personal devices, different operating systems, and difficulty working together with certain tools. Creating a plan to standardize hardware, including providing employees with the same type of computers, will help as your organization grows and your needs increase.
Device Replacement Plans
Laptops, servers, printers, and other devices aren’t intended to last forever. Since we know that these devices will one day break or stop working efficiently, it is important to have a plan for the replacement and upgrade of your hardware. Working with an IT professional can help you understand the expected lifetime of each device and get an estimated cost for replacements. This will give you a timeline and projected budget to follow, which will help you avoid unexpected costs or sudden technology failure.
Strong Security
Cybercriminals send out increasingly sophisticated attacks every day. Having strong antivirus, firewall, and spam filtering can help stop these attacks before they reach your network, but you can never be 100% protected from cyber-attacks. As you evaluate your existing security tools, talk to your IT support about where your gaps are, how to improve your written policies surrounding IT security, and if you should implement a more robust staff training program.
Technology planning can be overwhelming, but a strong plan can help your organization thrive. Creating a plan for the upcoming year can help you explain the importance of your technology to stakeholders and get the buy-in you need to make improvements. If you need support from a team of IT experts, please contact us.
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