Technology evolves at a breakneck pace these days. While it’s nice to have the “latest-and-greatest,” smaller companies may be hesitant to upgrade because of the associated costs. Still, if your business is operating with IT architecture that was designed years ago and has seen multiple patches and tweaks since, it may be more time- and resource-effective to fully redesign or replace it.
To help you determine whether your business’ IT environment needs a complete overhaul to maximize efficiency, we asked a panel of Forbes Technology Council members to share some red flags you should be watching for.
1. Your Existing Structure Blocks Every Vision Project
An overhaul of your IT environment can be very dangerous—so much rides on things working in ways that are often invisible to practically every member of the IT team. But when every project you envision taking your company to the next level is blocked by the structure of your current IT implementation, you have a strong sign that as dangerous as an overhaul is, it may be your only option. - Joel Faul, SMA Technologies
2. Your Subject-Matter Experts Have Moved On
Even with outstanding documentation, the human side of tech needs to be present to support it. When the number of subject-matter experts dwindles down to a select few, it is past time to reevaluate your business’ IT environment and consider an overhaul. - Micheal Goodwin, Server@Work
3. Shadow IT Has Emerged
The warning signs for me is shadow IT, which is various groups creating workarounds using out-of-the-system tools such as spreadsheets, cloud application, etc. If your business regularly experiences shadow IT, an overhaul is a must, especially with General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). - Haim Glickman, Sungard Availability Services Limited
4. Employees Are Copying And Pasting Information Between Systems
Track the use of tools like Notepad. In your service centers, ask the employees to describe the worst part of their job. Ask how often they must copy and paste information from one system into another. Visit your cybersecurity teams. How many systems must they look into to answer the question: “Are we safe?” - Stephen Moore, Exabeam
5. You’ve Amassed Technical Debt
Outdated technology causes companies to amass technical debt that drags down modernization initiatives, slows development and burdens a business with risk and cost. Warning signs include extensive one-off manual changes, poor documentation and poor integration with other apps or the cloud. - Kris Beevers, NS1
6. You Can’t Access Your Data Holistically And Easily
If business teams want an IT team to work on some of the new-age technologies like big data, cognition and AI to support their changing needs in the market, but you can’t access the data without too much work or delays, it’s a warning sign! It’s time for the overhaul and to adopt a data-first strategy for the new architecture. - Anand Mahurkar, Findability Sciences
7. Your Systems Aren’t Interconnected
One sign of ineffective systems is the lack of interconnectivity. Start by looking for areas where data is manually replicated across applications. You may not need to perform a full product dump if there are ways to programmatically connect applications. Minimizing manual data replication saves time, reduces mistakes and creates a more efficient workflow. - Aaron Vick, Cicayda
8. You’re Spending More Time On Maintenance Than Evolution
IT infrastructure is meant to help automate the things that we either cannot do manually or that are too time-intensive. Today, the challenge is about balancing the need to maintain legacy infrastructure versus the time that could and should be spent evolving that infrastructure to the next level. When the scales tip too far towards maintenance versus evolution, then it is time for an overhaul. - Juliette Rizkallah, SailPoint
9. There’s An Increase In ‘Exception Handling’
One warning sign that the IT environment isn’t functioning as efficiently as it could be is when many of the established functions require increased exception handling or ad hoc processes and functions. If the technology were being refreshed to accommodate the changing environment, exceptions to established functions and processes would be minimal. - James Litton, Identity Automation
10. Your Systems Are Pressed Beyond Their Original Capacities
Growth is often the main motivator in revisiting IT architecture. As equipment, networks and services have to handle more load—whether from employees or customers—there comes a point when systems are pressed beyond their design and become a detriment to the business. Keeping an eye on important metrics like error rate, response time and throughput should indicate when a change is required. - Chris Kirby, Retired
11. Your Old Technology Has Become A Security Risk
Using old technology that hasn’t been overhauled to keep up with the latest IT trends is a warning sign in itself and can prevent you from protecting against evolving cybersecurity threats. When the latest technology is implemented, it enhances efficiencies and ensures the smooth operation of the business, which pays off in the long run. Small investments in the IT overhaul provide an excellent return on investment. - Marty Puranik, Atlantic.Net, Inc.
12. Inflexible Proprietary Solutions Are Limiting Your Potential
Years ago, a lot of companies decided to invest in expensive proprietary solutions that functioned very well in isolation. That was fine when everyone worked inside an office cubicle. But with today’s revolution in cloud technologies and the explosion of the mobile workforce, proprietary systems are now a more costly and less flexible option that limits efficiency and potential. - Christopher Kenessey, NetMotion Software
13. You’re Amassing Service Tickets Or Losing Client Hours
One warning sign that leaders must watch is service desk tickets. Track volumes and mean time to remediation caused by network incidents. Another useful sign is lost client hours due to some connectivity, network or application problem. Next-gen analytics are ideal for providing quantifiable insights into where, when, why and how much user productivity is impacted. - Abe Ankumah, Nyansa
14. Your Projects Are Behind Schedule
One of the biggest warning signs, in this case, is your projects falling behind schedule. In terms of rapid market growth and change, being able to immediately react and adapt to it is crucial. The most elaborated IT architecture, in this case, is crucial if a company wants to keep its competitiveness, as meeting deadlines in many ways means being successful. - Daria Leshchenko, SupportYourApp Inc.
15. There’s A Knowledge Gap About Getting Your Systems Back Online
Legacy technologies tend to be ignored, and consequently, they fail unexpectedly and usually catastrophically. When they fail, there is often a knowledge gap about how to get them back online. This can cause chaos within an engineering team and requires expensive “mobbing” of a solution, with significant consequences for team productivity. - Paul Keister, Horoscope.com Inc.
16. You Can No Longer Adapt To Change
As business models change, some applications cannot be “upgraded” through refactoring or enhancements. This starts to show in the speed at which business capabilities are rolled out, delays in projects or complexity of business processes. For example, changing to a subscription model requires changes in billing, product, supply chain, etc., none of which were conceived in the original design. - Ramanujam (Ram) Rao, Hitachi Vantara
