At this time of year, many leaders and business owners are reviewing plans for the new year ahead. As we live in a digital age, the importance of solid IT strategy has never been so high. In this article we look at some key priorities that should be included in your IT strategy for 2021.
An IT strategy can help you align your goals, drive growth, and help to increase technology ROI within your company. Many businesses have IT strategies that span across three to five years, but due to the constant evolution of technology, IT strategies should be reassessed annually and reviewed quarterly, as technology that was in demand five years ago may be obsolete today. When thinking about the progression of your business, where do you usually start? If you’re unsure, or are thinking about updating your IT strategy, here are five priorities we recommend you consider for your IT plans in 2021.
Cyber security strategy
A reactive approach to security is no longer enough to protect your business from modern cyber security threats or to remain compliant with modern regulations. By implementing a cyber security strategy, you can ensure risk to business is addressed effectively, while meeting the increase in regulations and securing your users and business assets.
But where do you begin? We recommend you start with an IT security audit – this will show you exactly where your organisation’s security posture has any weaknesses or gaps. You’ll be able to see which areas need immediate attention and which areas can be planned into your strategy further down the line, saving you time and money.
Secure anywhere working
As we continue to work from home in 2021, many businesses are planning for the future of remote working. The pandemic required businesses to rapidly digitise, and now research from PWC has shown that a third of UK organisations are planning to accelerate their digitalisation plans due to COVID-19, while the same proportion will have more of their employees working remotely permanently.
With many devices now located outside the traditional logical and physical security parameters, the need for secure anywhere working is greater than ever.
A multi-layered, cyber security solution should be in place to protect your employees, devices and assets allowing them to securely access corporate data from any location without friction or hindering productivity.
Digital transformation strategy
A digital transformation strategy is a plan of action to reposition an organisation in the digital economy.
By embracing digital transformation and making it a part of your IT strategy, you can implement solutions that will improve your business processes and performance and make a positive difference in your organisation and bottom line. Digital transformation empowers your employees, helping them to be more creative, collaborative and productive.
A digital transformation strategy shouldn’t stop with your internal teams and processes, it should have your customers front and centre of the plan. How can your organisation improve your customers’ journey and provide greater value to them? Following a digital transformation framework will allow you to evaluate your services and offerings and help you innovate, keeping you ahead in your market. A good framework will include some core elements including process and innovation, data analytics, customer and employee engagement, culture, and technology.
Business Intelligence and AI
Business Intelligence (BI) solutions are designed to help you reveal valuable and actionable insights into your data. This information can be used to make better informed business decisions, rather than reactive, and direct your business in new directions to help gain profit.
BI helps you collect and analyse your own data and turns it into perceptive and actionable business information, which can then be used to innovate, cut costs, discover inefficient processes as well as identify better business opportunities.
Instead of working on historic excel reports after the fact, BI Solutions of today allow you to see your critical data in real-time.
With AI (Artificial Intelligence) now integrating directly into BI platforms, this opens huge opportunities for organisations to leverage AI for improving business outcomes.
Every business has metrics or key performance indicators (KPIs) that measure business success, but how do businesses determine what impacts those KPIs or what causes them to change or stay the same? Having real-time access to this information can be a game changer for businesses and it’s more accessible to every organisation than ever before.
IT support service models
Ensuring your organisation has the optimal IT support service model will contribute hugely to the overall success of your IT strategy. Organisations are different and have different requirements based on their resources available, IT budget, and their overall organisation objectives.
Different IT support models include:
- Fully Outsourced – also known as Managed Services
- Co-Managed Services – This is a combination of an outsourced IT partner mixed with internal IT resource, employed by your business
- Dedicated Service Desk – This is an outsourced service where the IT provider will supply dedicated resources to only work on your support issues and service requests
- In-house – Having a dedicated team of IT resources employed directly by your company
Understanding the pros and cons, costs benefits, and features of all service models will help you align the right support service as part of your strategy.
AZTech IT provide 24/7 Expert IT support services, IT strategy, and IT security solutions. If you need any help with your IT strategy or would like to schedule an IT security audit, call 03300 949 420, email info@aztechit.co.uk or visit the website www.aztechit.co.uk
