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Efficient and secure operations are every enterprise’s goal. IT teams and their leaders have the incredible responsibility of building and managing a strong infrastructure. Even the most well-staffed and resourceful team can fail to recognize outdated IT management practices amid everyday projects.
The result puts businesses at risk of data leaks, compliance failures, reputational damage, and an unproductive workforce.
There are red flags to look for throughout a company’s operations. Proactively finding and addressing these issues ensures an agile, secure, and profitable company. Explore the seven signs below to determine if your enterprise needs to adjust to meet modern IT demands.
1. Recognizing outdated IT management practices
The strongest indicator of outdated IT management practices is continuing to rely on legacy systems. These systems are complex, inefficient, and vulnerable to cyberattacks. All of these consequences hinder the enterprise’s adaptability and threaten business continuity.
A future-ready IT infrastructure prioritizes flexibility, security, and simplicity. Legacy systems are rife with obsolete software and processes easily exploitable by bad actors.
Obvious signs include difficulty resolving support tickets promptly, frequent security breaches, the inability to integrate different business applications, or obstacles to expanding operations in new regions.
2. Insufficient cloud capabilities for scaling needs
Given the ubiquity of cloud computing, internal server hosting is another red flag. Cloud managed service providers offer scalability and lower costs. Without these capabilities, the enterprise experiences bottlenecks, performance problems, and unsustainable growth.
Even with cloud technologies, productivity issues arise when used ineffectively. Assess the enterprise’s cloud strategy for vulnerabilities such as slow, unstable, and insecure access.
3. Increased downtime and its impact on operations
Outages and slow performance severely disrupt the employee and customer experiences. Frequent downtime puts business revenue and reputation in jeopardy.
When the enterprise struggles to meet demand during peak times, it’s necessary to address IT management practices. This starts with investigating any hardware and software weaknesses.
Making the appropriate upgrades, eliminating redundancies, and investing in disaster recovery solutions are essential to strengthening reliability.
4. Escalating security breaches
An increase in the frequency and severity of security incidents is a definitive sign of an enterprise’s outdated practices. The growing sophistication of cyberattacks requires a more robust security response.
There are more breach opportunities for enterprises because they have more employees, partners, and vendors with access to their networks. This volume of vulnerabilities hasn’t gone unnoticed. Verizon’s 2024 Data Breach Investigations Report highlights the following:
- 68 percent of attacks included a non-malicious human element
- 15 percent of breaches occurred via a third-party vendor or supplier
- Breaches exploiting a known vulnerability tripled since last year
Understanding where enterprise security risks stem from is critical to strengthening security posture and implementing more stringent policies.
5. Compliance failures and legal repercussions
Non-compliant business practices result in fines, legal challenges, and reputational damage. If these consequences aren’t severe enough, recurring compliance failures lead to dropped contracts, bankruptcy, and even closures.
Data protection involves the implementation of more stringent access controls, encryption, and other security practices like multi-factor authentication (MFA). The company-wide use of MFA signals an enterprise has committed to industry best practices.
6. Inadequate mobile management and security
Increased use of mobile devices and flexible workspaces brings new challenges to enterprise security. Common issues include unauthorized access, data loss, and ill-conceived mobile security policies.
Phishing attacks use email apps, SMS texts, and social media platforms to push messages with malicious links to collect company data. According to a 2023 Global Mobile Threat Report, employees are 6 to 10 times more likely to click on an SMS phishing attempt than an email-based one.
The mobile attack surface is more vulnerable because employees are less aware of mobile security best practices. Companies can’t secure, monitor, and control these endpoints or their data without mobile device management and better training.
7. Disjointed communication tools
Effective communication is the cornerstone of company-wide collaboration and productivity. Disjointed communication apps lead to missed messages, meetings, and delayed projects. The consolidation of these tools streamlines their functionality.
A unified platform integrates all communication mediums and project management tools to improve efficiency. This practice is essential for businesses with multiple locations across different time zones.
Conclusion: Upgrade your IT management strategy
A robust and adaptable IT infrastructure is essential to an enterprise’s success. Outdated systems, a weak cloud strategy, frequent crashes, severe security issues, non-compliance, compromised mobile security, and ineffective communication tools are all evidence that your business requires adjustments.
If your enterprise exhibits any of the signs above, take proactive measures to upgrade management practices immediately. Enterprises transform IT vulnerabilities into strengths by modernizing legacy systems, enhancing cloud capabilities, prioritizing security and compliance, and optimizing communication tools.
The time and resource investment into upgrades is significant but benefits the company in the long term. Optimizing enterprise connectivity leads to operational efficiency, stronger revenue, and exponential employee productivity. If the internal IT team is ill-equipped to handle these changes, working with a reliable third-party partner is an ideal solution.
Position your company for continued growth and innovation with Advantage. Our experts will create a streamlined, efficient infrastructure to meet critical business goals. Long-term success starts with a conversation—let’s define your company’s needs together and build a plan for success.