News
The Top 4 Technology Decisions CEOs Will Make in 2015
Leader in Unified Communications Educates Business Owners on Key
Advancements
ALEXANDRIA, VA—Janurary 28, 2015 — The Washington Network, Inc., a
leader in unified communications, announced today that the company is launching
an awareness campaign to inform business owners of the top 4 technology
decisions that CEOs will make this year regarding their office technology. The
decisions involve IT departments, capital expenditures, network security and
the pros and cons of moving to the cloud. In today’s business environment,
owners need to assess the advancement in all technological areas, but paying
special attention to these four areas will yield exponential benefits in the
next calendar year. Here are the four decisions that need to be made:
1.
Is It Time for Me to Downsize My In-House IT Department? IT departments
have long served as a vital support structure for ensuring that all business
operations run smoothly. However, as more software and hardware applications
migrate to “the cloud” and the number of managed services providers grows,
businesses need to start taking a hard look at whether or not it is fiscally
responsible for them to pay for full-time IT staff. Advancements have made it possible
for remote technicians to fix computer problems off-site and run constant
monitoring, management and data optimization software to improve the
efficiencies of a company’s network. In many cases, entire teams are used to
ensure optimum network performance, something that a single employee cannot
hope to deliver consistently. As the playing field has leveled, more
sophisticated tools have been developed, making this job even more competitive.
In fact, many large organizations are beginning to outsource key areas of their
IT operations entirely, and it is not long before outsourced IT departments are
commonplace.
2. How Can I Secure My Network From Threats? With cybercrimes on the rise, more and
more businesses are beginning to take proper precautions to prevent company
downtime or data loss. Spyware, malware, data backup and anti-virus protection
are all vital to the economic well-being of any stable business. In emergency
or negligence situations, critical data loss can set teams back for weeks and put
a giant damper on productivity. Many businesses are reexamining their
Acceptable Internet Usage Policies (AUPs), to make sure that employees are only
visiting work-related sites when at the office. These types of threats are
usually found on dangerous websites, which can be eliminated entirely with
simple site filtering tools that restrict access to unnecessarily volatile
sites. Many companies see this need, especially in the case where businesses
derive funding from institutional and private investors. These organizations
are often required to spend a significant portion of their yearly budget on
security enhancing technologies to make sure that all sensitive information
remains perpetually protected.
3.
Big Capital Expenditures or Small Cloud Transition Costs? With servers and
telephony shifting from the standard on-premise solution of old, to more
software-centric and remote operation, many businesses are choosing to invest
heavily in the transition to the cloud. The biggest driving factor behind this
decision is that from a financial standpoint, most businesses want to upgrade
their technology, but don’t want to create a large amount of capital
expenditures, which constrain financial resources. Technologies with rental
programs, or lowered total cost structures are increasingly popular because of
their minimal impact on a budget. With plenty of equipment nearly obsolete,
many businesses are investigating technologies which leverage a fixed-cost of
ownership in their cost structure. This helps businesses avoid big capital
expenditures, keeping them lean and mean for the next year.
4.
What’s Our Policy Regarding Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD)? Networks are the
backbone of any business. However, when employees bring their own devices onto
the network, they can often disrupt the infrastructure and slow the overall
speed of the network drastically. Furthermore, these devices can pose as
security threats when they are not properly configured to run in concert with
all of the other technology endpoints on the existing network. It’s a complex
web and network design is an intricate process, which is absolutely essential
to get right. Some businesses refuse to let people bring their own devices onto
the network, yet the vast majority of businesses allow employees to bring their
own mobile devices onto the network, as long as they are properly configured by
a leading technology specialist. That way, employees can utilize the tools they
feel most comfortable with, without derailing anyone else’s performance on the
network.
By focusing on these four critical
decisions, CEOs can rest assured that their employees will have the tools they
need to do great work during 2015. Each decision will shape the future of each
organization, and at the end of the day, these choices are up to senior
leadership.