What Today’s Business Leaders Need to Know About IT

Look, I’m not going to pretend that the executive level of any size of business doesn’t already have plenty on its plate. Having said that, it is important that a business’ top dogs are on the same page as its IT team members. Let’s run through the different points that this relationship should focus on for your operational benefit.

To begin, we’ll review the role that your IT should play in your workplace.

Technology Maintenance Goes Far Beyond Basic Tech Support

Despite all the effort we and other service providers like us put into spreading awareness about modern IT services, the first impression of an IT person—or even an IT department in its entirety—is largely similar to what it has been for decades:

• They’re someone you call when something breaks
• IT is ultimately a necessary business cost
• Communicating with your IT staff is more often than not a painful or drawn-out task

However, more modern methodologies have made these conceptions decidedly outdated. Today, your IT should be a legitimate business asset that brings increased value to your operations—something that is very possible with today’s solutions.

In addition, technology doesn’t need to break before IT gets involved. Nowadays, the industry is shifting its focus to something called proactive maintenance—basically, the idea that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure, just applied to business technology.

Let me put it this way—let’s say you’re cooking. Does it make more sense to have all your ingredients out and prepared as you go, or to run back and forth between the pantry and your cooktop to hurriedly prep each ingredient as you need it? While the latter option might help you get some extra steps in, the first is clearly going to be more effective in your attempt to make Duck Pâté en Croûte.

Modern IT maintenance is the same. Instead of encountering an issue and scrambling to make the needed updates, repairs, or what-have-you before your operations are impacted too much, modern MSPs actively work to maintain your technology so that updates are applied in a timely manner, repairs are avoided through maintenance, and what-have-yous become you-don’t-have-tos.

Why It’s Crucial That IT and Management Collaborate

Nowadays, there are a lot of places where IT needs to be involved in the workplace and its processes. In addition to the aforementioned maintenance, IT plays various roles that management should be depending on, if they aren’t already. Management should be leaning on IT to help create a roadmap for their future business technology to follow, based on industry trends and how their particular business plans are taking shape.

This means you need to ensure that you are working with your IT resource—whether that’s an in-house department or an outsourced provider like Directive—to ensure that your goals are aligned with their priorities.

Working with us, you can be sure that they will be.

We work with our clients closely to ensure that their leadership is ready to not only use their technology, but thrive through its use. Interested in learning more about what we can offer you and your business’ IT? Give us a call at 607.433.2200.