All modern businesses rely on a framework of software, hardware, and related services to keep everything moving. This, I’m sure you know. What you may not be so confident on is how you’re actually going to set all of it up in the first place! If you don’t have much prior IT experience, setting up your infrastructure can be an incredibly daunting task. To make things a little simpler, here are my best tips for building an IT infrastructure at your business.
Find the Right Solutions as Early as Possible
The decisions you make early on regarding different IT services and products will have huge repercussions for the future of your business. Whether those repercussions are good or bad is totally within your hands! When you’re running a small business, it’s absolutely essential to find products and services which will suit your current and future business needs. You’ll need to set up servers, choose security solutions, and reliable IT managed services for small business before you can really start operating. Getting all of this in order can be an exceedingly time-consuming and sometimes confusing process, so make sure you start it as soon as possible. This will give you more flexibility to define the needs of your business, and find solutions which are a great fit.
Prioritize Vendor Relations
Credit: Wikimedia
When you’re searching for new IT services and business tech solutions, make sure you’re giving your vendor relationships enough thought. One of the best ways to assess this is often simply by talking to the vendor, and using the early stages of your relationship as a forecast of the kind of support you’ll have access to later if and when anything goes wrong. What’s their procedure when one of their clients has an issue with the product or service? Will they help you? Will they charge for that help? Will you be placed in a queue and have to put your operations on hold for hours at a time? These are all very important questions to ask when you’re choosing which companies you’re going to use to set up your first IT infrastructure. No matter what product or service you’re looking into, make sure you have a direct line of contact for any kind of troubleshooting or queries that may come up.
Choose Solutions That Will Grow Along with Your Company
Credit: Public Domain Pictures
As your business grows and develops past its current limitations, your IT needs are going to change significantly. For example, a fledgling start-up may use a system of file sharing that works perfectly for 30 people, but this tech will quickly unravel after a few years and a few hundred new employees! In order to make sure your IT solutions start well and end well, it’s essential to choose a solution that will be flexible enough to grow along with your business. Fail to do this, and you’re certain to run into all kinds of future switching costs, for example staff turnover or company-wide training when you need to replace outdated solutions.
Featured Image
.JPG){kind=link}