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Future-Proofing in an Age of Constant Change

Future-Proofing in an Age of Constant Change

The notion of future-proofing your business within an environment characterized by constant change may seem contradictory at first glance. If future-proofing entails implementing an IT infrastructure that will not rapidly become obsolete, and we know that technology changes continually, how is it possible to truly future-proof your IT?

It’s an excellent question, and the answer is that future-proofing is not really about any particular device or technology. Future-proofing your business infrastructure is more about strategy, about making IT choices that allow your business to shift and change with the currents of technological advancement with greater agility. It’s a nuanced difference, but an important nuance, nonetheless.

If the objective of future-proofing is to improve your business’ ability to adapt to an ever-changing business environment, then what are some concrete examples of this strategy in motion? Below we cover four examples along with explanations of how they help you to avoid obsolescence.

Strategic Choice

Adopt cloud-based infrastructure.

How This Future-Proofs Your IT

  • Ensures that you always have access to state-of-the-art infrastructure, as data center hardware and networking are continually updated by cloud service providers.
  • Supports multi-channel customer service, an increasingly expected option that 78% of customers already routinely use1.
  • Allows you to scale up or down easily as your business changes and grows, and as market conditions change.
  • Enables remote and hybrid work options, for which demand continues to grow; about half of employees prefer remote work, with about 25% of onsite workers planning to search for a remote job2.

Strategic Choice

Migrate applications to Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) versions.

How This Future-Proofs Your IT

  • Offers you access to the most recent version of an application on a subscription basis, so you never have to worry about buying and installing new versions.
  • Supports access to business and customer data from anywhere, creating flexibility to change when, how, and where you conduct business.
  • Gives all employees access to the same customer data, allowing them to provide consistent, personalized service at a level now expected by 72% of customers3.

Strategic Choice

Refresh on-premises hardware and software routinely.

How This Future-Proofs Your IT

  • Ensures that as new software tools that may be useful in advancing your business objectives become available, your business will be positioned to adopt the new tools, which often impose systems demands that outdated hardware and operating systems cannot keep up with.
  • Ensures that software, operating systems are continually patched and supported by manufacturer.

Strategic Choice

Include vCIO in your strategic planning team.

How This Future-Proofs Your IT

  • Keeps you apprised of technology trends, and whether and how they might apply to your business.
  • Improves your ability to plan strategically for infrastructure that resists obsolescence—in other words, helps you align IT decisions with future-proofing strategy.

One might also argue that (a) cybersecurity solutions and (b) managed IT services belong on this list, as both promote IT longevity and viability in their own ways. Implementing a multi-layered cybersecurity program helps to prevent cyber incidents that can lead to data loss, downtime, enormous remediation costs, and possibly even lawsuits. Clearly these types of outcomes can damage the future prospects of a business.

Similarly, managed IT services keep your entire infrastructure maintained and in good condition, improving productivity, ensuring a reliable customer experience, and avoiding major issues that can lead to unplanned downtime.

And while these solutions both certainly put your business in a position to continue operating smoothly into the future, the strategic choices in the table above stand apart in their centrality to future-proofing. This is because they contribute specifically to your business’ ability to adapt and stay on the leading edge, both in terms of the technology you use and also by positioning your business to take advantage of new market opportunities through strategic use of IT.

NexusTek offers strategic consulting to guide your business’ future-proofing initiatives, along with the IT solutions you need to keep your infrastructure healthy and viable into the future.

Interested in talking to an IT strategy expert about how to future-proof your infrastructure?

CONTACT US

References:

  1. (2019). State of the connected customer, third edition. https://www.salesforce.com/content/dam/web/en_us/www/assets/pdf/salesforce-state-of-the-connected-customer-report-2019.pdf
  2. Gonzales, M. (2022, June 13). Nearly half of workers are ‘definitely looking’ to work remotely. SHRM. https://www.shrm.org/resourcesandtools/hr-topics/behavioral-competencies/global-and-cultural-effectiveness/pages/nearly-half-of-workers-are-definitely-looking-to-work-remotely.aspx
  3. (2019). State of the connected customer, third edition. https://www.salesforce.com/content/dam/web/en_us/www/assets/pdf/salesforce-state-of-the-connected-customer-report-2019.pdf

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