As we turn toward a New Year, most of us set individual resolutions. We focus on how we can grow, improve and make changes to benefit our lifestyle. There's every reason for businesses to adopt the same approach — the New Year provides a fresh opportunity for goal-setting and collaboration.
Many businesses are dependent on effective IT solutions to streamline their operational processes and create symbiotic partnerships with stakeholders. Looking forward to 2023, companies must find a suitable balance between technological efficacy and employee satisfaction. Setting the best tech-based resolutions can help your business achieve greater successes across all departments in the coming year. Let's examine some of the most critical focuses you can consider when setting tech resolutions for your business.
Schedule Fewer Virtual Meetings
Research shows that, while meetings are a necessary part of conducting business, up to 70% of meetings detract from employee productivity rates. In essence, meetings are not always the best way to disseminate information. While they're vital to fostering a sense of camaraderie and a focus on collaborative goals, they do have their downsides. If employees attend too many meetings each week, it can result in massive costs to the business.
Consider which meetings are essential and which you can transfer to other intra-office communications. Chat platforms are an excellent method of ensuring team questions or concerns are addressed instead of defaulting to scheduled virtual meetings.
How you conduct virtual communications also affects the response you might get from employees. Chat platforms allow for less formal communication and have a less disruptive effect on productivity rates. Employees don't need to check their chats while in the middle of a task and can time their communications based on their daily production needs.
It will always be necessary for team members to carve out blocks of time for important meetings, brainstorming sessions, team building and performance reviews. Still, a chat platform will help streamline internal processes. Employees can focus on work and communicate when needed without team members having to block off chunks of time that could be better spent.
Protect Your Data
Data is a currency, and as the days of filing cabinets are over, businesses must invest in cybersecurity to protect sensitive information. Cybercriminals are constantly finding new methods of accessing protected data. As their processes become more sophisticated, companies must find more proactive and aggressive company data protection methods. Company data is best protected when partnering with a professional IT consulting firm.
Consider these potential New Year's resolutions to protect your data in 2023:
- Encryption: Without an encryption key, hackers may breach your database, but they won't be able to decode its contents. Commonly used software is automatically encrypted, but you may also have to look at encrypting your internally developed code.
- Scanning: Checking your platform for vulnerabilities will help improve your business data protection. If you make this a priority, you'll be able to identify and address vulnerabilities before they become real threats. Scan all new devices, as well as current employees' devices, which may carry threats you'd otherwise be unaware of.
- Updating: If your software prompts you to update, do so straight away. Often, the developers are responding to identified weaknesses in the code.
- Monitoring: Take careful steps to monitor your network. Malware can make its way into your system in many different ways. With correctly configured monitoring systems, you can spot unusual activity, suspicious data usage and unauthorized communications.
- Training: One of the best ways to protect data is to invest in training your human assets. Employees should be able to identify phishing attempts and suspicious activity and report it. This sense of collaboration will allow each team member to play a role in protecting your company's data assets.
Data protection requirements differ from business to business. It's best to figure out some company-specific New Year's resolutions about this.
Give Your Employees Confidence
Keeping company morale up is critical in times of economic uncertainty. In the current economy, tech layoffs are a reality for many businesses. While your business has handled crises before, it would be erroneous not to consider the confidence levels within your workforce.
Now, more than ever, give people reasons to believe in themselves and your organization. Some ideas to consider when fostering a sense of confidence in your team include the following:
- Listen: As much as it isn't possible to answer all employee's questions and assuage their doubts, encourage management to have an open-door policy. Give your team as much information as possible and assure them you'll keep them informed when there's more clarity on topics of concern.
- Spread some happiness: Think of ways to incorporate a little joy in the office at the right moments. Consider team events and ensure you recognize employees' achievements and hard work. Sometimes, it's the small things that matter most. You can also bring your chat platform into this and encourage team members to share inspirational messages.
- Get creative: Be honest with your employees and encourage them to develop new ideas to keep you at the top of your game during the economic downturn. Encourage team members to focus on areas where your business can improve and create an atmosphere where they feel comfortable sharing their ideas.
Partner With an IT Solutions Company on New Projects
Technology has changed how companies do business and interact with clients. Keeping up with the demand means incorporating the latest technology, which can be overwhelming. Partner with an IT company to gain clarity and alleviate stress.
First, you must have a clear knowledge of your business goals for the New Year. Many IT solutions companies focus on different aspects of the service, so you can choose the one that best fits your goals.
The IT solutions company you partner with will be able to tailor your technology around those goals. With a reliable partner on board, you can look forward to a boost in productivity and fewer headaches for your administration team.
Each project you undertake has different IT requirements. Creating a solid, maintainable partnership may be worth considering your requirements in the coming year and tailoring your choice around them. Some other considerations when choosing the perfect IT solutions partner include the following:
- Consider the cost: The least expensive option may not be the one that brings the most value to your organization. Take the time to weigh up short-term costs vs. long-term benefits.
- Ask the right questions: Tech partnerships are critical, so don't hesitate to ask as many questions as you like. If each party understands the operational parameters of a relationship, they can establish whether it will be mutually beneficial.
Let Technology Partners Help You Make 2023 a Fantastic Business Year
To stay ahead of the curve, businesses must embrace new technologies and adapting markets. Technology Partners can help you reach your tech goals in the New Year by augmenting your current technology, data security and cloud solutions processes. If you're looking for the highest caliber of consultants to take your business to the next level, look no further than Technology Partners.
From the problem-solving phase through to the implementation phase, Technology Partners will be there for you, in St. Louis and across the country. We'll help you with everything, from staffing requirements to creating unique solutions for your business based on its needs.
We've been industry leaders for over two decades and would love to learn more about how we can meet your business needs. If you'd like to learn more about how Technology Partners can launch you into 2023, please get in touch with us today, and one of our qualified consultants will call you back in less than a day.
