Think about all the technology you use during your average workday. From laptops and tablets to email and Microsoft 365, you rely on your IT to carry out most of your daily activities. Essentially, your IT is the backbone of your business. If you’re not careful, however, your infrastructure can become less efficient and lead to disruptions as time goes on.
The Importance of Performing Regular IT Assessments
The reason why your infrastructure gets worse over time is simply because technology isn’t perfect. As your hardware and software become outdated, conflicts with other programs, failures, and so on, inefficiencies are introduced that cause your IT environment to degrade. As a result, your IT becomes more of a hindrance than an asset. Fortunately, there’s an easy way to preserve the performance of your IT environment—through an information technology assessment.
Also known as a network assessment, this procedure is a thorough analysis of your entire IT environment. It reviews everything in your infrastructure from your equipment and software to processes and overall performance. With network assessment services, you can gain valuable insight into your IT and identify areas for improvement so you can develop strategies for optimization.
To better understand the importance of performing an IT infrastructure assessment, think about your car. If you want to keep your car in good condition, what do you do? You take it to an auto shop and have it checked out. Doing so gives experts a chance to look at your car, perform maintenance, and find issues before they can balloon into bigger problems. The purpose of an IT evaluation is very similar.
What Can an Assessment Do for Your Business?
There are plenty of reasons why you should want to schedule regular IT assessments. Conducting an analysis can be one of the best ways to improve the overall performance of your business. By revealing troublesome bottlenecks, you can implement fixes that boost productivity and efficiency.
On top of improving operational performance, a thorough IT assessment is a sure-fire way to ensure your cybersecurity processes are keeping you protected. As technology continues to evolve, unfortunately, so does cybercrime. It’s never been more important to have reliable cybersecurity.
The Steps Involved in a Technology Assessment Process
IT assessments can differ depending on the managed services provider you use. However, there are a few common processes every evaluation should have. These steps include:
- Identify and inventory resources: As companies grow or go remote, it gets harder to keep track of who has access to what, how old a certain device or system is, and just general performance. An assessment usually takes inventory of all of your resources to provide clarity on what needs updating.
- Process and policy review: This is where your policies are examined to make sure they are accomplishing the intended goal. Rules like the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD), for example, are vital to keeping your network running as it should. If there are policies that aren’t contributing to your success, your MSP may suggest removing them to streamline your organization.
- Cybersecurity review: Cybersecurity is a must for every business, and it’s arguably the most important service your business can have. It’s so important in fact, there are entire IT assessments solely dedicated to security and risk.
- Data storage audit: An assessment also often evaluates the data you possess, how you’re storing it, and who has access to it.
- Report and strategize: Once an IT assessment is finished, your MSP creates a report on the information they’ve gathered. They may also provide recommendations for you to use to create a strategy to enhance your IT performance across the board.
Keep Your IT Running Smoothly
The Logic Group is an industry-leading IT provider that has been delivering the IT services businesses need for over 25 years. If you want to maintain the health of your infrastructure, we can help. Our team can perform an evaluation of your IT environment and inform you of its status. We also work with you to implement solutions that further enhance the capabilities of your infrastructure.
If you’d like to learn more about our network assessment services, contact us today.
