In today’s fast paced business environment, it is clear to everyone how critical IT is for effective operation and management. Making certain that a company has a well-tuned IT function is an essential ingredient in ensuring its competitiveness in the marketplace.
As such, assessing technology is now a fundamental process in a business life cycle. The benefits of a high performing Technology group include streamlined business processes, reduced overheads and better customer satisfaction.
The Importance of Assessing IT in the Workplace
Conducting IT assessments within an organization should be an annual exercise. Assessments can help an organization pinpoint areas of improvement before they become liabilities and they can help to ensure proper performance of IT processes and systems. Assessments can also help to discover ways in which technology can enhance productivity and improve the bottom line of an organization.
A thorough IT assessment is conducted using input from both the business and IT teams. Even though all technology components are typically assessed and considered, knowing where an organization’s greatest areas of IT exposure exist helps to focus the assessment in those critical areas. Organization leaders should always be considering how to leverage leading technologies for maximum competitive advantage, to help boost productivity and to enhance their bottom-line.
Finding Weaknesses and Room for Improvement
While an IT assessment can identify areas of weaknesses some key ones may include:
Security threats
These can be very costly to an organization, so it is important that each component of its infrastructure is secure. With the mounting volume of security threats and the complex nature of networking and data systems, obtaining a professional assessment will highlight the key weaknesses for rapid action.
Inefficient processes
Ideally an organization’s technology should deliver a high ROI, but if things are not functioning properly, it can end up being costly for the business while impacting growth.
Out-of-place investments
If you are uncertain whether your technological investment is well placed, a technology assessment can provide the answers. As an example, the assessment can help ensure IT investment is truly helping to achieve the overall business goals.
Implementation and Recommendations
Implementation of recommendations resulting from an IT assessment may lead to the realization of such benefits as:
Improved IT leadership and performance;
Improved business performance;
Decreased operational risks;
Better control of the IT organization, processes and infrastructure;
Successful projects on time and on budget;
Decreased cost exposure from project overruns;
Enhanced competitive position;
Improved security; and
Improved IT governance.
Conducting an IT assessment is particularly important when there has been a change in senior management, a change in business direction, or when the marketplace commands that new ways of doing business are required. The IT assessment will help your organization explore new ways of improving its return on IT investments and enabling improved business performance.
Due to the substantial benefits of an IT assessment, companies are taking time to assess their IT to determine whether their platform supports today’s business and more importantly if their business can grow with the application, database, infrastructure, organization and leadership that is presently in place.
The Litcom Approach
Litcom provides a comprehensive and thorough, yet rapid, review of your company’s technology environment. We will appraise the complete technology landscape and provide a written evaluation that includes a set of recommendations outlining how to better use technology in order to best meet your company’s business goals and objectives. We use leading practices and industry recognized methods as part of our work.
Discovering potential issues and risks before they can cause significant problems is the driving force behind an IT assessment. Our IT assessment not only plays an integral role in providing a snapshot of your company’s technology capability; it also provides your organization with a perspective on the effectiveness of its systems, staff, budget, vendors, procedures and company policies. At Litcom, we recognize that maximizing your technology investment and efficiently supporting the business is the path to competitive advantage.
Litcom’s IT assessment service will help your organization improve technology ROI and align IT investments with your overall business strategy. Our assessment will help you better understand and act to:
- Ensure effective leadership, management and governance of the IT function;
- Reduce IT risks and exposures;
- Control costs and decrease project and other investment overruns;
- Improve security and disaster recovery processes; and
- Build improved capability to successfully deliver projects on time and on budget.
Contact us today for additional information on IT Assessments.