IT plays a crucial role in keeping your business running, so any kind of downtime immediately affects productivity and profitability. To help forestall issues, your business must keep hardware and software relatively current.
What are the issues in making IT upgrades?
One of the biggest challenges of carrying out a hardware refresh is the process of recreating the relevant configurations and permissions, and transferring data. For a single PC, this process could take a few hours to a whole day – and if it deprives an employee of PC access during the transition, that means a significant productivity drop. This effect is quickly compounded where several computers or servers are being updated at the same time.
Another factor, often overlooked when carrying out upgrades, is the end user’s reaction. Although your employees are undoubtedly in favour of tools that make their jobs easier and quicker, most lack the skills to reconfigure new systems to match their preferences. Many will resent having to reset options and settings, perhaps over-estimating the inconvenience and unconsciously disengaging from new systems, lowering uptake and the overall benefit to the company.
Purchasing hardware is relatively simple, with some resellers able to deliver PCs, servers and other systems next day. Choosing a vendor who specialises in simply shifting units may mean that you get your new hardware more quickly, but it also means that the bulk of the work remains to be done once each device arrives at your premises.
The importance of pre-provisioning
Here at Broadband Cloud Solutions we offer a complete system provisioning service to help make the transition between systems as seamless as possible. We take the time to assess your IT needs and to suggest suitable upgrades and replacements, before taking full responsibility for sourcing each application or system.
Our team of experts is on then hand to assist with reconfiguration, ensuring that the new systems slot straight into your operating environment so that employees are ready to go as soon as everything is plugged in and powered up.
Pre-provisioning is not only important for reducing downtime and lost productivity, but it is also a massive weight of responsibility off your team too.
Cloud options can reduce upgrades
In the case of software, your business can avoid pre-provisioning and upgrades all together by choosing Cloud-based applications instead. Software as a Service (SaaS) offerings are continuously updated by the provider, who is also responsible for managing the complete deployment process.
These same systems can also help when refreshing hardware, allowing your workers to connect remotely to the applications and services they know, from any Internet-connected computer. This approach reduces the window of lost productivity to virtually zero as old systems are transitioned to new. And when the transfer is complete, the differences in appearance and functionality should be minimal too, allowing users to realise the full performance benefits of the new systems.
To learn more about pre-provisioning services, and how Broadband Cloud Solutions can help your business get the most from new hardware or Cloud software investments, contact our expert team today for a chat.
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