End of Year Business Technology Checklist for 2016

The end of the year is already here and now is the time to gear up for 2016 to prepare for maximizing revenue and expanding visibility. The beginning of the calendar year is more than just proceeding with a new business plan. It’s also a great opportunity to assess your business's technological standing.

Here are five things that should be on your technology checklist to help ensure your business is at the top of the technology trend in 2016:

Complete a technology inventory assessment

Have a full technology summary on hand that not only includes your servers, computers and laptops, but every piece of tech hardware that employees use such as monitors, keyboard and printers. This technology summary should also help identify what’s needed for user productivity, the age of the hardware and what should be serviced or replaced. Having the inventory list will also help budget any future needs for replacement or upgrading.

Assess all your technology performance levels

As your business grows, so are the demands for today’s fast-paced technology growth. Performing an analysis of your business’s everyday technology-based communication tools can help drive your productivity and efficiency. Having a computer with high performance specs is only as good as your internet speed. Assessing the technology performance levels of your website, social media efforts and any other levels of your customer interfacing will help improve customer visibility as well.

Assess your backup devices and services

Most SMBs do not think about disaster recovery needs of their business data. Often times the thoughts are as simple as having an external hard drive connected or saving documents elsewhere like a cloud backup. While this is suitable for retrieving single documents as needed, the real problem comes with bigger issues that include theft, natural disasters or user error. Documents can be saved, but not software and business applications. And the biggest factor with a network failure is downtime incurred that leads to loss of productivity and potential business revenue. Assessing your backup services should include assessing the real cost of downtime and reviewing options to ensure full business recovery.

Complete a network security assessment

With cybersecurity threats at its highest coming into 2016, businesses will have to prepare for potential harm to connected devices on their network. With access to the internet including not only network devices like computers, but also mobile devices on the go, the importance of being aware of all potential threats is vital and can save your business from a disastrous aftermath from a security breach. While a security assessment will not protect you from a cybersecurity attack, it will help ensure best practices are met at your weakest points of entry and prepare your business’s disaster recovery plan.

Reorganize and clean out network drives

This is the final task that all businesses dread – decluttering and reorganizing network drives. With 365 days of new documents created, saved and sent, having to review the old while looking ahead can be tedious. However, ridding your network drives of outdated files and archiving important documents will make all new information more readily accessible and create a more efficient and streamlined workflow.

By taking a full inventory of your current business technology and future needs can help your business not only take advantage of how technology can drive performance, but also can protect your business livelihood for maximum revenue and expanded customer visibility for 2016

TaylorWorks, Inc. offers IT consulting services and a FREE network analysis to provide network and service recommendations. With TaylorWorks, Inc. Managed IT Services plans, we provide businesses with proactive and on-demand support for monitoring, security and maintenance services. Contact TaylorWorks today at 407-478-6600 for a FREE system analysis..