When you’re part of a small, rapidly-growing business, agency, or other kind of organization, technical issues can slow down your employees or stop work dead in its tracks. These hiccups can derail your business trajectory. With a sound IT infrastructure strategy, you experience uninterrupted growth and a more positive employee experience.
What is an IT infrastructure strategy?
An IT infrastructure strategy plots the course for uninterrupted growth by identifying, installing, and maintaining hardware, software, and networks. Developing the right strategy for your business takes into account many different things, like your industry, growth projections, and relative prioritization of security, reliability, and cost-effectiveness.
A quick IT infrastructure strategy audit:
If you don’t know the state of your IT infrastructure then do a quick benchmarking exercise to see how strong it is. Write down the answers to these questions. If you experience any of these, your infrastructure may be a liability to your growth plans.
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How frequently do you experience outages?
Outages or downtime in systems and services can be a symptom of poor IT infrastructure; outdated hardware, inadequate network capacity, or insufficient redundancy measures. If this happens frequently, it can result in productivity losses, dissatisfied customers, unhappy employees, and increased IT support costs.
How frequently do you experience slow network performance?
As you add new employees, devices and software, it increases bandwidth usage of your IT infrastructure. Without proactive improvements to network infrastructure, this increase bandwidth can lead to slower network speeds, latency issues, and sluggish overall performance.
Do you have connectivity bottlenecks?
Poor IT infrastructure often causes bottlenecks in connectivity, where certain areas of the network experience slower speeds or limited access due to congestion. Bottlenecks can occur in network switches, routers, server connections, or data storage systems, impacting data transfer rates, application performance, and user experience.
How frequently do you receive phishing emails or data breaches?
IT infrastructure strategies must align with changing security mandates and compliance requirements to protect against cyber threats and data breaches. A poor IT infrastructure strategy may overlook security updates, fail to implement necessary security protocols, or lack robust security measures, leaving systems vulnerable to attacks, unauthorized access, and data leaks.
Benefits of aligning IT infrastructure strategy with business objectives
Depending on your business objectives, your IT strategy can have a range of different benefits. For example, if you operate in a volatile, rapidly-changing industry, your IT infrastructure strategy may prioritize agility and flexibility over resource allocation. Here are a few different benefits of an aligned IT strategy:
- Optimized Resource Allocation: When IT strategy aligns with business goals, resources such as budget, technology investments, and manpower are allocated strategically to support initiatives that directly contribute to business growth and competitiveness.
- Enhanced Operational Efficiency: A well-aligned IT infrastructure enables streamlined operations, efficient workflows, and automated processes that improve productivity, reduce manual tasks, and optimize resource utilization across the organization.
- Improved Agility and Flexibility: Alignment with business goals can result in an infrastructure that’s agile and adaptable to changing market conditions, technological advancements, and business priorities. It allows for rapid deployment of new solutions, scalability to accommodate growth, and responsiveness to emerging opportunities and challenges.
- Better Decision Making: This alignment provides accurate and timely data insights, analytics, and reporting capabilities that enable informed decision making at all levels of the organization. It supports data-driven strategies, performance monitoring, and continuous improvement efforts.
- Enhanced Customer Experience: Aligned IT infrastructure enables seamless customer interactions, personalized services, and innovative solutions that enhance customer satisfaction, loyalty, and retention.
- Risk Mitigation: Safeguard sensitive information and ensure business continuity in the face of cyber threats, regulatory changes, or disruptions. This facet of an IT infrastructure strategy focuses on prioritizing cybersecurity, data protection, compliance, and risk management.
5 considerations for building an IT infrastructure strategy:
Now that we’ve explored the value or benefits of an aligned IT infrastructure strategy, let’s take a look at five considerations for building an IT infrastructure strategy:
- Scalability
- Organization
- Reliability
- Security
- Leveraging AI and Automation
1. Scalability of IT infrastructure
Scalability refers to the ability of your IT infrastructure to handle growth and changes in demand. A scalable infrastructure can easily accommodate increases in data volume, user traffic, and resource requirements without significant disruptions or performance degradation. Consider adopting cloud services for flexible resource allocation, implementing virtualization for efficient resource utilization, and designing network architectures that support seamless expansion.
2. Organized data and cables
Organizing data and cables within your IT infrastructure is essential for efficiency, maintenance, and troubleshooting. Data organization involves implementing structured data storage solutions, data classification, and data management policies to ensure data is accessible, secure, and compliant. It’s not just data that needs to be organized, either. Your network cable organization is key to support diagnosing issues and streamlining performance. Consider using cable management tools, labeling cables for easy identification, and maintaining neat and organized cable routes to prevent tangling, damage, and connectivity issues.
3. Network reliability
Reliability is paramount in IT infrastructure to ensure continuous operation and minimal downtime. It involves deploying redundant components, backup systems, and failover mechanisms to mitigate the impact of hardware failures, network disruptions, or system crashes. Regular maintenance, monitoring, and testing also contribute to reliability by identifying and addressing potential issues before they escalate into critical failures.
4. Network security
Protect your data, systems, and networks from cyber threats, unauthorized access, and data breaches. Consider implementing robust cybersecurity measures such as firewalls, antivirus software, intrusion detection systems, and access controls. Data encryption, regular security audits, employee training, and compliance with industry regulations also contribute to a secure IT infrastructure.
5. Leveraging AI and Automation
AI-powered analytics tools provide valuable insights into system performance, user behavior, and security threats, enabling proactive management and optimization. Automation streamlines routine tasks, such as software updates, patch management, and network configurations, freeing up IT resources for more strategic initiatives and innovation. Integrating AI and automation into IT infrastructure maximizes agility, responsiveness, and competitiveness of your growing business.
Develop an IT infrastructure strategy with an expert
It is rare that a growing organization makes a smooth transition from one phase of its IT infrastructure to the next. Learn more about our IT infrastructure consulting services or simply reach out to start a conversation with an expert. Our team of certified IT infrastructure consultants have helped thousands of companies solve growth pains and set them up for continued success.