IT performance measures how well an IT infrastructure aligns with its organization's digital and business goals. There's more to IT performance than speed and processing power. The term encompasses various IT aspects, including digital key performance indicators (KPIs), IT investments and budget, IT-related human capital, digital security, and IT growth.
In other words, IT performance management means ensuring that your IT infrastructure plays its role in bringing your business closer to its goals. This could be through cutting costs, making business operations faster and more efficient, or sharpening your competitive edge.
Digital performance is a strong marker of business success, given its potential influence on an organization's revenue, spending, and growth — especially for businesses heavily reliant on information systems. To that end, here are five pointers to get you on the right track to optimal digital performance:
Optimize IT costs
In business, there's an old saying, "You've got to spend money to make money." But when it comes to IT investments, it's not quantity that matters but efficiency in terms of value and ROI. An enlightening publication on CIO Dive shows how companies lose millions on unnecessary or redundant IT resources. Besides auditing your IT before any major purchases and critically checking IT procurement, here are more ways to cut and optimize your IT expenditure:
- Outsource IT labour and management
- Decommission legacy systems
- Lease equipment and software instead of buying
- Aim for more realistic IT and business goals
- Prioritize IT investments in areas with high ROI value
- Seek professional IT investment advice
Embrace the cloud
Cloud computing is one of the fastest-growing enterprise IT segments today. Flexera reports that most businesses run more than half of their workloads on the public cloud, and many plan to increase their cloud footprint in the next year. Also, cloud adoption, spending, and usage are rising, especially among SMBs.
The main reason why the cloud is so attractive is that it reduces IT investments, enabling fast, low-cost IT solutions deployments. Cloud services also allow access to powerful computing and data storage resources that would otherwise be prohibitively expensive or impractical as on-premise installations.
Automate, automate, automate
Automation is the heart of digital efficiency. Nowadays, you can utilize a virtually limitless range of resources, such as Internet of Things, artificial intelligence, low-code IDEs, and cloud services, to automate mundane, repeatable, or multistep business processes.
Business process automation speeds up operations and minimizes human input and errors. Automation helps cut labour costs, improve operational efficiency, and reduce risks.
Invest in cybersecurity
Cybersecurity is an increasingly important IT performance factor. Be sure to implement robust digital security measures, from firewalls and intrusion detection to network monitoring systems, to protect your valuable IT assets from the myriad of today's cyber threats. But of course, your security framework will depend on the nature of your organization's IT infrastructure and business model. And remember to consider the data safety and privacy compliance requirements imposed on your business (if any) when modelling your security posture.
Work with IT professionals
Working with a tech-savvy IT support team helps you get the most out of your digital investments. And the quickest and easiest way to get highly skilled IT experts is to hire an IT provider or managed IT services provider. A managed IT provider takes care of your IT management (partially or fully) for a small monthly or annual fee. Working with an IT provider saves you money in IT labour costs and guarantees high-quality IT support. Moreover, a managed IT provider can optimize your IT by advising you on worthwhile purchases and other critical IT-related decisions.
A good managed IT provider is a strategic business partner that helps streamline your digital processes and investments for optimal performance. This, and more, is what you get by partnering with Highway 99. We offer IT excellence and peace of mind by providing you with proactive IT services and endless opportunities for IT optimization and growth. Highway 99 Technology Solutions is the right choice for improving your digital performance. Call us at 604-262-2999 or book a free consultation to get started.
Get the IT Support Your Business Deserves
Initial consultations are FREE.
"*" indicates required fields