If somebody asked you to list all of the departments in your company in order of importance, you’d probably put marketing and sales somewhere near the top. They’re the ones that are responsible for bringing in revenue. Then you’d have product development, they’re generating new ideas and pushing the business forward. After that, you’ve got the smaller but still vital departments like HR who keep your employees happy and help you find new talent, and accounting who make sure that your finances are all in order. Most business owners know that all departments have a role to play but most people would put the IT department at the bottom of the list. Usually, people think that they’re just there to fix any problems with your computers and make occasional updates to software but they do a whole lot more than that. If you aren’t putting enough investment into your IT team, your business won’t be working to its full potential. If you’re not sure why they’re so important, here is a list of the vital functions that they perform.
Improving Efficiency
Efficiency is essential in business and if your employees aren’t working to their full potential, you’re not going to maximise profits. There are all sorts of different ways to increase productivity and efficiency in business but one of the best is making use of technology. Computer software can take over a lot of the menial tasks that take up your employee’s time, leaving them free to work on other things. Implementing that software is complicated and you’ll need a solid IT department to do it for you. They’ll also be responsible for ironing out any problems with the software to make sure that the rest of your employees aren’t being slowed down by outdated software.
As well as implementing and updating software, the IT team are also responsible for finding solutions to existing problems. They’ll analyse all of the systems that you’ve got in place already and identify areas that are slowing things down. Then they can start designing solutions that make life easier for all of your employees and improve efficiency across the entire company.
Training
Technology is a huge asset for companies but only if you’re using it properly. One of the biggest tech mistakes that businesses make is not dedicating enough time to training. New software can speed things up if people know how to use it but if they don’t, it’ll just slow everything down for months while your staff work out how to use it properly. That’s why technology training is so vital and it falls to your IT team to provide it. Without a good IT team to train your staff on updated software, you’ll have to bring in an outside company every time and that’s going to cost you a lot of money.
Training is an ongoing concern, it’s not just something that you need to do once. The IT department is going to be making constant updates so your staff will need regular training on how to use the new systems.
App Building
Regardless of what your business does, building a great app is always a good move. If you’re selling products directly to the customer, you can use it as a way to streamline the process for them and increase the chance of them making a purchase. It’s also a great marketing tool because you can send offers and deals direct to people’s phone. On top of all that, they’ve got your logo on their phone and they’ll see it every time they take it out of their pocket.
Building a great app is no easy feat and you’ll need a team of experts to help you out. Some of the work you’ll need to do yourself, like deciding on what features you’re going to include and who your target demographic for the app is going to be. Beyond that, you need your IT team to take over. They’ll be the ones that actually build the app itself so their role is the most important. Once the app is finished, you’ll need an outside company like global app testing to make sure that there aren’t any bugs or annoying features that will put users off. When all of that is done and the app is released, your IT team will take over the most important part of the process, updating the app. If you release an app, people are only going to be interested as long as there is new content on there for them. It’s down to your IT department to build and release regular updates for your app to make sure that people are still engaging with it.
Security
Cyber security is a huge concern for all businesses these days. The risk of data breach is increasing as criminals find new ways to break through security systems. Losing sensitive customer data can spell disaster for a company. Customers have trusted you with that information and if you lose it, you’ll break that trust. A public data breach scandal will make all of your existing customers and potential new ones think twice about dealing with you again and it can be a real struggle to come back from. That’s why it’s so important that you avoid it in the first place. Without a good IT team to manage your security, you’re never going to be able to do that. Cyber criminals work fast so as soon as you implement a new security system, you don’t have long before they find a way around it and it becomes obsolete. Your IT team will be constantly updating your security to make sure that your data isn’t stolen. However, as hard as they try, it could still happen. Your IT team have an important role to play there as well. As soon as a breach happens, plugging the gaps and securing your system again as quickly as possible is a priority. If you don’t have a good IT team to do damage control for you, things are going to be a lot worse than they need to be.
Data Management
All businesses have a huge amount of data to manage. Protecting that data from theft is one of the important roles that the IT plays but you also need them to manage it. One of the common reasons for breaches is that data isn’t organised properly and it can easily be lost. You also need to make sure that employees can access any data that they need easily. Keeping on top of all that data and creating a system to manage it easily is vital and you need a good IT team to do that for you. You can always outsource it to another company but if you want regular updating and maintenance on it, you’ll need somebody in-house to deal with it for you.
Fixing Problems
This is the function that most people think of when they think of the IT team but it’s more important than people realise. If your computer crashes, you’ll call the IT team to come and help you out with it. That is important because every minute that your computer is down, you’re losing money. But it’s the larger problems that will really do some damage. If the entire computer system goes down or you’ve got software that’s crashing all the time, nobody is going to get anything done. Fixing those big issues and getting everybody back to work again is one of the most important functions of a good IT team.
Every business needs a well trained IT team to perform all of these functions so make sure that you’re investing enough money in yours.
