Halloween may have passed but there’s still plenty to be afraid of when it comes to IT management. It also means that we are almost at the halfway point to the final quarter of the calendar year. Which often means salespeople and other deal makers at businesses are deeply enmeshed in efforts to end the year on a high note.
Factors Weighing on the IT Workforce
This end-of-year push can place significant demands on IT services and IT management at your business.
- If the end-of-year holidays cause changes in demand, you may need to scale your IT management staff and resources accordingly until the season ends.
- End-of-year holidays may result in critical members of your IT management or support teams being absent on holiday.
- Your sales and marketing colleagues may demand more support for last-minute negotiations with customers or partners, increasing their need for IT resources and support.
- Users seeking to complete pet projects before year’s end may be tempted to pursue rogue or shadow IT deployments without notifying your IT management team. This can increase security and operational risks significantly.
- Your business may even be planning or executing end-of-year staff reductions, which can directly affect your IT management abilities.
- If your business depends on outside help for IT management, your chosen providers could be affected by some or all of these factors as well.
No wonder the fear factor increases for many in IT management this time of year. The good news is that with the right precautions, you and your team can maintain objectivity on the good parts of the season.
Mitigating Possible Failures
It seems important that during such fluctuations in an organization’s IT infrastructure, the management deploys preventive measures beforehand to effectively deal with any unexpected situations that may arise. Here are some precautions to institute as good practice:
Precaution #1: Know Your Business Network
Especially if your business adds seasonal workers or forges short-term relationships with outsiders, you must be able to know who and what connects to your IT environment.
Precaution #2: Refine your IT Reach
Once you have an accurate, complete, and up-to-date map of your network and connected resources, inspect it closely. If there are unauthorized or unknown connections, disconnect them, and notify those responsible if possible. If there are new premise- or cloud-based resources to be added, make sure they’re adequately covered by your IT management solutions and processes.
Precaution #3: Educate Your Technology Users
Reach out to your users, both permanent and itinerant. Let them know that your IT management team is taking extra steps to prepare for seasonal spikes, ebbs, and flows. Also remind them that it’s prime time for hackers and phishing expeditions, and to take extra care in guarding against fake emails and unauthorized network access attempts.
With solid tools, processes, and precautions, your IT management team can ensure that your business experiences no “day of the dead” as 2018 ends, and is ready to hit the ground running as 2019 begins.
Start now, if you haven’t already, to ensure that IT management delivers treats, not tricks, for your business.
Virima: Here to Help Your IT Management
Virima’s solutions for IT Asset Discovery, IT Asset Management (ITAM), and IT Service Management (ITSM) can help to improve your IT management efforts, whatever the season.
Virima solutions can automatically discover and map your critical IT resources and the interconnections that link them to one another, your applications and services, and your users. They’re easy to use and configure, and produce useful, actionable reports about your IT environment. And Virima Managed SaaS Services (MSS) help get you up and running quickly, so that you may readily adapt to changing demands and requirements.
Virima features can automatically discover and map your critical IT resources and the interconnections that link them to one another, your applications and services, and your users.
Virima is here to help. To get started, contact us today to schedule a demo and explore the possibilities!
