What You Need to Know About Technology Upgrades

Even if we’d like it to last forever, business technology can’t possibly do so for a number of reasons. Due to the fact that businesses and their technology are constantly upgrading and changing, it’s almost a certainty that you’ll have to upgrade your technology at some point, whether it reaches its end-of-life event or just simply becomes obsolete for your organization. In fact, failing to update your infrastructure from time to time can have serious negative side-effects for your business.

We’ll show you why solutions eventually reach their EOL and how to handle this event when it arrives.

Why Do Services and Solutions Have an End-of-Life?
All good things must come to an end. For example, you probably can’t remember the last time you used an actual rotary phone (if ever), and there’s a very good reason we don’t carve messages in stone or drive horse-and-buggies around anymore--there are better, more efficient options for these solutions. While they may have been game-changing for the time they existed, there was always an effort to improve and innovate. This process continues for as long as people can dream of making better business decisions and improving their operations. After all, if there’s one thing that all businesses can agree on, it’s that faster and more efficient solutions are better than old, outdated ones.

Technology in general has improved substantially over the past several decades. Computers that used to fill up entire rooms are now dwarfed in power by the devices we carry with us in our pockets. Of course, this change was gradual and occurred over a rather long period of time. The same level of change can be seen in automobiles. The first automobile was built in 1885 by Karl Benz, but it took another 15 years to introduce a proper steering wheel and 24 years for the addition of a radio. 1958 saw the addition of the seatbelt, but it wasn’t until 1970 that it became a front-seat requirement. Considering just how far vehicles have come in this span of time--driving themselves, connecting to space radio services, and warning drivers if doors or seatbelts aren’t used properly--it’s quite easy to see just how out-of-date a revolutionary (at the time) vehicle like the one Benz produced is in today’s society. The same aspect can be applied to business technology.

How to Approach Your Business’ IT
You don’t always have to wait until the end-of-life event for your technology to upgrade it. We recommend taking the following steps for replacing your IT:

• Evaluation: Take a look at your business’ IT from a big-picture perspective. How does your business want to make progress? Is your technology able to meet this progress? An inventory system for your technology helps considerably in this regard, and it can help you keep track of which upgrades are coming when.
• Emphasis: Once you know where your business wants to be in the near future, you need to take micro-steps in the right direction. If the budget exists for this, then you need to consider which equipment should be prioritized, as well as whether or not you can afford them. Consider how many opportunities are being missed due to the upgrade not being done, as well as how close the system’s EOL is. There might even be a warranty on it that is preventing your business from reaching a specific goal.
• Execution: Once you’ve figured out what your greatest needs are and how you can afford them, you’ll have to put your plans into motion. This might mean completing the upgrade process in its entirely or separating it into portions.

Washington Works can help your business implement the right technology at the right time. To learn more, reach out to us at 301-571-5040.