For many businesses, the infrastructure plans made last year didn’t match the infrastructure needs this year. The sudden increase in remote work placed unexpected demands on networks, security, mobile device management, video conferencing, and virtual desktop infrastructure. As we draw near the end of this year and begin planning for the next, it’s worth keeping in mind that whatever plans we make, we need to retain the flexibility to adapt to new challenges. Nevertheless, businesses need to make plans for the future based on expected conditions and plans for the future of the business.

What’s driving your infrastructure planning? Key considerations to keep in mind include:

Infrastructure modernization.

Aging infrastructure wasn’t designed to support a remote workforce or the data-driven demands of digital transformation.

Information security.

As businesses rely more and more on remote work, on cloud, and on data-driven “everything”, protecting data from theft and tampering needs to be an even higher priority. One of the key threats businesses need to protect against is ransomware, which has the potential to completely shut down an organization.

System reliability.

Aging systems that regularly fail or can’t keep up with increased demand can mean completely revisiting how you deliver IT services.

Infrastructure management.

Complex, heterogenous environments create a management challenge. Operations teams often need to use multiple tools to monitor and control them, with no insight into the overall environment.

Cloud.

Cloud is at the center of most IT strategies. It can bring agility, reliability, and scalability, but there are also a host of cloud challenges businesses need to address to succeed.

Business needs.

IT always needs to be in service of the business. Technology should never be introduced simply because it’s cool; technology needs to be selected because it provides capabilities that support business processes.

Costs.

Despite all that IT contributes to a business’s ability to make money, IT is a cost center, not a profit center. Finding lower-cost ways of delivering services is an important factor in technology decisions.

New technology.

The desire to introduce new technology just because it’s new isn’t a good reason for making it part of your IT strategy. Any technology used should deliver some business or technical value beyond simply being the latest cool thing.

For companies that aren’t sure which considerations should be the main driver behind their infrastructure strategy, an infrastructure assessment from Prescient Solutions can help develop your strategy. Once the right technology direction is determined, IT consulting and managed technology services provide infrastructure support to ensure the strategy is implemented and systems operate at high levels of efficiency. Contact Prescient Solutions to learn how our services can help you succeed in deploying an IT solution that helps your business grow.