When you purchase any piece of technology or equipment for your business, there will always be an “end of life” moment. This is the time when it slows down, doesn’t perform as well, and presents issues and frustrations to your business.
Waiting till the time when the technology is no longer useful to the business causes issues and doesn’t allow for the planning and replacement of the technology.
IT Lifecycle Management refers to the stages from purchasing to disposing of that technology, whether its software, hardware, or infrastructure. It allows for planning, examining your business needs, your budget, and when you need it by.
What Is IT Lifecycle Management?
IT Lifecycle Management is broken down into four stages.
- Procurement – which includes finance, evaluating equipment options, purchasing, receiving and contract management.
- Deployment – which includes scheduling, testing, set up and inventory management.
- Management – which includes monitoring, compliance, maintenance, backup, and financial management.
- De-commissioning – which includes sanitisation, asset removal and disposal/lease management returns.
What Technology Should Your IT Lifecycle Management Plan Cover?
Your plan should include PCs, laptops, other mobile devices, servers, operating systems, software, and applications. If you don’t currently have a plan, look at your technology, when they were purchased and their life expectancy. This will give you a starting point so you can plan around that end date, your business needs and examine replacement options.
Benefits
The benefits of an IT Lifecycle Management Plan include
Forecasting: it allows your business to forecast your hardware and software needs for streamlined budgeting and financial management.
Connectedness: it allows you to stay connected longer and reduces unexpected downtime when the technology fails or doesn’t perform at its best.[
Security: it improves security and regulatory compliance, as it stops unauthorised access to your systems and technology which can occur from failing technology.
Decision-making: it allows your business to make informed decisions ahead of time before the technology fails and affects your business.
Planning: there are no nasty surprises, as it allows you to plan ahead of time and know what’s coming up.
Dangers Of Not Having A Plan
When an asset isn’t performing at its best, it can cause a considerable number of issues including:
Security Breaches: if the technology (be it software, hardware, or infrastructure) isn’t updated or replaced then it can create vulnerabilities and open you up to attacks. This can affect your clients, your business reputation and cost you more money trying to fix these consequences.
Costing more money to maintain the old: The maintenance cost of old equipment and software can outweigh the costs of replacing it. For example, a server that’s not performing well, will affect so many aspects of the business including major disruptions and frustrations. It is best to know when this is likely to happen and replace it before that time.
Affecting productivity and moral: staff won’t be able to do their jobs as quickly with latency and technology performance issues. This will affect their productivity, performance, and reviews with their managers. Furthermore, if they’re high achievers this will affect their confidence and they may even decide to leave.
The thought of replacing a piece of aging technology can be daunting, especially if the cost is high. However, cost shouldn’t be what holds you back from upgrading your technology, the consequences are far worse including unexpected downtime, decrease in productivity and security breaches affecting your business and your reputation.
If you’ve been looking to improve your IT Lifecycle Management with a team of experts, then contact Linktech Australia today.