You Need to Sufficiently Prepare to Make Changes to Your Business’ IT

Technology is something that experiences rapid change, and while it’s usually beneficial to businesses, change can often bring with it a set of growing pains. You might be able to get more done and reach more customers, but it might stretch your resources, frustrate employees, and force new processes upon your organization. When this change comes, will you lament the good old days, or will you seize the opportunity to improve your business as a whole? When it comes to technology, the answer might make or break the future of your organization.

We’ll help you make the tough choices regarding your business’ technology solution and the challenges that upgrading can present.

Document Everything

If you’re planning on making significant changes to your network, you should be documenting everything as thoroughly as possible. We don’t care if it’s implementing brand new workstations for your whole office or installing a new printer; you want to keep track of who does what with any sort of project implementation. This is so that you know who is responsible for tasks, configurations, etc. If you don’t know what was done during the setup process, you won’t know how to address issues that pop up in the short or long term, meaning you might wind up doing the same work twice.

Here are some examples of topics related to IT that should be documented, but you should keep in mind that just about any process related to IT should be documented thoroughly:

• Hardware/software purchase dates and warranty information
• License information (how many users/devices, how long is the license for, etc.)
• Model and serial numbers, product keys, etc.
• Who installed it and when?
• What steps were taken to install it. Were any workarounds or special configuration options used?
• Where can we get support for each individual component and for how long?
• Configuration settings for the hardware and software.

Depending on your IT department, resource, or process, your documentation will likely change. For example, a router will have much different information compared to a full-blown Microsoft Office implementation.

The technicians at Horne & Benik document everything very carefully. It is one of the things we expect from our technicians, as thorough documentation when supporting complex network environments can potentially help our clients avoid disastrous downtime and other implementation issues.

Be Prepared for Some Pushback

When businesses implement new technology solutions, there is always someone who doesn’t want to use it. They might claim it doesn’t make sense, especially if the old way worked “perfectly fine,” or they are under the impression that the new solution will actually make their job much more difficult. It’s important to address these misconceptions as they crop up to keep productivity at its peak.

The truth of the matter is that these changes will often throw a wrench in your employees’ workday, impacting their processes in ways that might seem insurmountable. If someone has been doing the job the same way for five years, it’s natural they will be hesitant to change things up.

Most employees want to do a good job, so you need to be sure to counter any resistance to this change by educating your staff on why the change is good, as well as how it will help them do a better job in the long run. Offer additional training to further supplement the use of this new software, and above all else, reinforce the idea that the benefits outweigh the problems.

Horne & Benik wants to help your business break out of old routines and strike gold on new ground. To learn about how we can make your network and processes more efficient, reach out to us at (603) 499-4400.