The Importance of Looking After and Developing Your Company’s IT

Information Technology (IT) has become integral to business efficiency, connectivity, and profitability; in fact, your company’s IT apparatus is a very fundamental, key pillar of your business, one that you would do well to develop, look after, and secure/protect.

Why You Should Develop, Protect, and Look After Your Company’s  Infrastructure

Because of the varied and diversified nature of the modern work and business environment, your business or company needs to stay innovative and nimble enough to manoeuvre the ever-changing business landscape. The best way to ensure this is by leveraging current technological advancements to spearhead overall company growth and profitability – but just looking at basic usage statistics should be enough to convince and business owner that IT needs to be at the heart of any modern company:

• Over 3.8 billion people use the internet today, which is 40% of the world’s population
• 8 billion devices will be connected to the internet by 2020
• More than 570 new websites are created every minute
• There are over 3.5 billion searches per day on Google

Why develop?

You need to develop your company’s IT apparatus because having an effective IT system gives your company or business the edge it needs to stay innovative and profitable in its market of operation.

Take the example of a situation where you are the head of a problem-based business, a company that aims to provide innovative solutions to pressing market problems. In such a case, developing your IT hardware and software elements, perhaps by upgrading the company’s servers, streamlining and automating essential processes, or using smart technologies and artificial intelligence to collect important business data and operate fundamental business operations can be the difference between business success and failure. Of course, there are plenty of good hardware and software development companies out there too.

You can develop your IT infrastructure in a number of ways and benefit from it a number of ways too. As mentioned, you can upgrade your base systems or hardware — computers, servers, operating/network systems, etc. and from it, benefit from enhanced efficiency and perhaps better decision making within the business — better data collection leads to better business decisions.

Indeed, data is fast becoming the number one resource for new leads in business – a place, in fact, where business begins. Pearl Zhu, author of The Digital Master series says: “We are moving slowly into an era where big data is the starting point, not the end.”

In addition to developing and upgrading your base IT system, you can also leverage mobile applications and artificial intelligence. Mobile apps have become an especially important IT tool, one that your company can leverage in many ways such as offering on-the-go services and customer IT support, shopping, data collection, bill management, etc.

Why protect and look after?

Once you have in place an effective IT infrastructure, ensure it remains up to date, safe, and secure. Securing your company’s IT infrastructure is especially essential because it is part of caring for, and looking after your company’s IT system, and because having a safe and operationally-secure IT system keeps your business data safe from unwanted intrusions.

It’s a concern that even governments take seriously. Look at the recent reports surrounding Chinese company Huawei and its alleged ‘listening in’ capabilities through a plethora of devices. While that controversy rumbles on, the company still pushes forward with its new Harmony operating system. New tech never sleeps.

By ensuring that your IT system is capable of protecting your customers’ data, you can defocus on defence, keeping the system safe from say, hackers, and instead focus on offence, driving company innovation and growth. We cannot overstate the need to ensure your base, most important, IT systems are up to date, safe and secure.

In the case of protecting your IT system, and therefore looking after it, you can take a multi-pronged approach depending on the nature of your business. For instance, a bank that operates a mobile-banking system can integrate sound and safe data management systems.

The Digital Transformation EXPO in London (9-10 October) collects many tech and data specialists under one roof for what has become one of Europe’s leading technology trade fairs. It is at places like this that the next generation of IT solutions are made real.

Conclusion

Looking after your IT system at work and making sure it is safe, secure, and up-to-date has many advantages. By keeping the IT system up to date, safe, and secure, you can rest easy in the knowledge that important company data such as market research or product testing data is secure from the competition.

Other benefits of looking after your company’s IT infrastructure include safe data storage, protection from hackers, improved efficiency, and enhanced innovation in all areas of the company or business.

As we move into an increasingly digitised future, IT is the one area of your business you need to keep absolutely up to date.