Technology is ever-changing, which means your business must be as well. Here are some tips about how to keep your business’s tech relevant and useful despite the seemingly never-ending updates.
In modern years, technology changes faster than it ever have before, often changing on a day by day basis without us even realizing thanks to automatic updates. It’s understandable, then, that keeping systems and interfaces up to date has become an increasing concern for businesses and organizations.
Having an out of date system can cause all manner of issues for the smooth running of your business as well as your customer feedback, so it goes without saying that keeping up to date is essential, which is where IT resilience plays its part.
In this article we’ll be taking a closer look at IT resilience. We’ll explain what it means, why it is so important, and how you can ensure that your team and your business are up to par.
What is IT Resilience?
IT resilience is a broad-spectrum term which can be applied to a variety of different factors within the sector. The term can be used in regard to any factor involving how evolving technology can interrupt the smooth running of an organization, and to what degree a company is able to respond to and provide an acceptable level of service while the fault or issue is resolved.
As IT resilience is such a broad topic, for the purposes of this article we’ll be focusing on how the principles of IT resilience can be applied to out of date software or staff training.
Why is IT Resilience Important?
The IT industry is one of the most competitive industries in modern society, with thousands of new businesses joining the fray every year, each offering better value, more data, and faster network speeds, leaving margins tighter than ever.
To make matters more challenging, customers no longer express the same brand loyalty as they may have just a couple of decades before; if they are dissatisfied with a service, or if a provider no longer keeps up with its competitors, most consumers will not think twice before jumping ship to a rival company.
It is because of factors such as this that IT resilience is so important. While of course no business is without its technical malfunctions or errors, being lax or slow in your response to problems can be catastrophic for your company’s reputation. Therefore, having resilience strategies in place is essential.
An IT Resilience Strategy
In regards to ensuring your business can shift fluidly from update to update or between software upgrades, a sound strategy combines both keeping the software in question updated as well as keeping staff updated to the changes being implemented and providing the necessary training where needed.
After all, even the most up to date, fast and accurate system is useless if your staff are unfamiliar with it, or unsure as to how to get the most out of it to ensure customer satisfaction.
Time to Upgrade
Deciding when it is time to upgrade can be tricky for smaller or newer businesses to navigate. The costs of new programs can often be high, and many CEO’s struggle to condone such expenditure.
While few would expect any business to adopt new software the day it is released, operating out of date or unsupported software can be catastrophic for businesses, because if things go wrong you are truly on your own.
Waiting until the last possible opportunity to upgrade is also an ill-advised strategy, as it leaves little time to prepare staff and/or fine-tune any teething problems brought up by the transition. In general, waiting a short while will give you chance to research the new software, and give time for any initial bugs to be ironed out.
Training Your Staff
When navigating a software change, ensuring key members of staff have the correct training or certification is essential. Of course, this training does incur extra financial costs, but by selecting a few key members of staff to undergo in-depth training you can actually bring your entire team up to speed on the changes, as well as promote staff interaction, teamwork, and peer to peer training.
Training your staff is also far less of a challenge than you may think. Courses can take as little as 5 days, and break down an entire system into different courses, allowing you to target the precise training required for your business model.
Courses can often be offered on-campus as part of a package deal, or off-campus, allowing your staff to remain in the office and on hand while being trained.
A Resilient Company
While keeping your fingers firmly on the pulse of all technological and IT changes is nearly impossible in the 21st century, as a manager or business owner there are many steps you can take to be resilient and prepared for IT changes and necessary system upgrades.