Picture from Flickr.com by: Mugley
Is your business running on many different systems? Are you unable to get the right information when and where you need it? Are the costs of your IT infrastructure to high? Is your IT staff working on supporting your systems instead of your business? Are you in need of an update?
If the answer to any of the questions above is yes you should think about smartening your infrastructure. A smart and rational infrastructure allows you to use enterprise quality services regardless of the size of your business.
Standardize & rationalize
Over time businesses acquire a wide variety of software and applications from different vendors. This makes communication between different systems difficult, while integration of information is crucial for your business. By standardizing your infrastructure it becomes easier to integrate different types of information. Less software also means less maintenance and savings in licensing costs.
Smarten
After you have standardized and rationalized your infrastructure it is time to make it smart. Decide if you need to host your software on premise or if you can move it to an online environment. If you license your software as an online service you will never have to worry about updates or maintenance again.
A smart infrastructure also allows you to scale up or down depending on your success. The ease and flexibility of a smart infrastructure helps you and your IT staff to focus on the needs of your business and users. This does not only make your infrastructure smart, but also your company.
Action:
Make a list of what you have and what you need
Decide what you have to purchase and what you can do without
Move to one (hosted) platform
Next week: #6. Collaborate with partners
Last week: #4. Enable your people
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