When technology reaches the end of its lifespan, the resulting situation can create considerable risks for businesses. But it can also create the opportunity for necessary IT upgrades in addition to routine maintenance. How you approach this inevitable business process determines the difference between continued smooth operations and lost productivity.
It’s essential to follow IT best practices when it comes to deciding how to upgrade or replace your end-of-life technology. You’ll need to begin by thoroughly analyzing your hardware and software needs, followed by prioritizing your options and establishing a budget.
Having the right IT managed services provider and planning for necessary changes are crucial steps for maintaining productivity, ensuring support and preventing security issues.
3 Key Tips for Handling End-of-Life IT
- Evaluate: The first step is analyzing your options and knowing what you want. This is a big-picture exercise in terms of thinking about your overall business direction. But it’s also a real-life exercise in such things as taking inventory of the software and hardware you have, then creating a timeline for replacement.
- Prioritize: This means taking the budget into consideration. Now that you know what you have and what you need to upgrade, you need to deal with the financing. Consider these key issues:
- What is the cost of holding onto your old technology vs. investing in new technology?
- Are your old computers keeping you from upgrading in other areas, such as software or applications you can’t run yet? Is it stifling your staff’s productivity?
- Do you want to replace your systems with equivalent technology? Or do you want to go down a different path?
- How much longer will you have vendor support?
- Is any of the equipment approaching end-of-life still under warranty?
Identify those elements that are necessary to replace or upgrade along with those elements that would be nice to add, if the budget will allow. Then validate your findings, test the conclusions and prepare for implementation.
- Focus: With all that in mind, it’s time to focus on getting the job done. You’ve identified your priorities and outlined the budget, so now it’s time to put the plan into action.
Ultimately, this evaluation process should focus on your company’s bottom line. This should be a way to improve your profit margin and your business operations while containing operational costs. In other words, the key is good management of a predictable business pattern.
Make End-of-Life Replacement Part of Your Overall IT Plan
Technology changes quickly. With proper planning, the necessary process of product lifecycle management can be optimized for any size business or any budget. But don’t wait until too long into your business cycle before turning to an IT managed services provider to plan for the inevitable end-of-life technology.
Because of our extensive experience with IT management and support, V2 Systems can help you create a successful business plan with network solutions tailored to your business’ mission and budget that takes into account the lifespan of your technology.
Since 1995, Manassas Park, VA-based V2 Systems has employed local systems administrators, network engineers, security consultants, help desk technicians and partnering companies to meet a wide range of clients’ IT needs, from research, to implementation, to maintenance. Concentrate on your VISION…We’ll handle the TECHNOLOGY!