Technology evolves quickly, often too quickly, for IT departments to keep up with. At some point, your equipment will stop fulfilling the growing needs of your business, yet you may feel stuck trying to operate on outdated hardware. When this happens, you end up leaving your entire infrastructure open to a whole raft of performance- and security-related issues.
But replacing and upgrading old hardware can be expensive, complicated and time-consuming. If you’re reliant on on-premises technology that you need to buy, install and maintain yourself, then you’ll likely find it difficult to find the time and resources to upgrade.
Every business has budgetary constraints, but also an understanding that old hardware can leave you open to cyber-security threats. So how do you know exactly when you have to make a move?
Your Hardware Is No Longer Supported
Many companies get by using hardware that’s not exactly cutting-edge, but there’s a big difference between doing that and running hardware that’s no longer supported by the manufacturer. Unless it’s a non-critical system with no involvement in the storage or transmission of confidential data, you’ll want to make absolutely certain that all your organization’s hardware is still under some sort of warranty and support plan.
If your hardware is still officially supported, then the manufacturer will be obligated to help you whenever issues arise and, more importantly, you’ll still receive firmware updates to address critical security vulnerabilities. Ideally, you should also make sure that all the hardware you use is still under warranty to avoid unnecessary expenses for repairs.
Employee Productivity Is Taking a Hit
Every moment your employees spend waiting for slow machines costs your company money, reduces productivity, and causes frustration and saps motivation among your teams. If they are spending more time than necessary trying to accomplish simple computing tasks, then it’s probably time to upgrade.
Productivity will also take a hit if your computers are crashing unexpectedly or they require frequent repairs. Both cause downtime, the bane of any modern business that relies on technology, so you’ll want to keep it to a minimum and experience it only for routine maintenance tasks. After all, there’s no point in paying people to work for you when all they can do is sit around waiting for your systems to come online again.
Your Business Is Growing Faster than Your IT
Imagine your business has just identified a new market opportunity, one that also requires scaling up operations to meet new sales targets. With new opportunities come new challenges and demands, and the last thing you want stifling growth opportunities is old hardware that can’t keep up.
Expanding your company’s computing capacity can be quite expensive, particularly if you need to invest in new servers, workstations and mobile devices so you teams can use all the latest productivity apps on the go. There’s also office space to think about, as well as increased utility bills. Nonetheless, there’s a good chance that upgrading is the only option if you want to stay safe and continue growing your business.
How the Cloud Can Help
Cloud computing is a perfect solution to your hardware upgrading concerns. Instead of relying on expensive on-premises machinery and the expertise required to maintain it, the cloud allows you to access the computing resources you need with nothing more than a web browser, which even the simplest machines can run. That’s why the cloud has become the best answer to scalability and overheads challenges.
If you’re looking for technology solutions that can keep up with the growing demands of your business, then SpectrumWise is here to help. Call us today to find out just how easy it is to make your IT concerns a thing of the past.
