With the end of 2022 fast approaching, business owners may have started planning for the following year. Therefore, it is important to do a year-end technology review to have a clear picture of how the current year was spent and know what to prepare for in the future.
According to a survey, 63% of businesses conduct a review once a year, 18% conduct their reviews twice a year and 8% conduct their reviews three times a year (quarterly). This research shows how smart and important it is to have a year-end review.
A year-end review is a time to review the wins of your business and identify errors and losses. It is crucial for your business as well as your client. It is like a wellness check. A year-end review gives insight into how your clients view your product or services.
One area that needs to be reviewed at the end of the year is your technology or IT system. Technology is massively involved in your business. If your technology fails then your business fails. This is one reason why it is smart to do a year-end technology review.
What is a Year-end Technology Review?
Sometimes referred to as a technical business review, a year-end technology review is an excellent opportunity for business leaders, MSP providers and IT executives to discuss the ups, downs and everything in between regarding the company’s technology. It is also a time to discuss projects and ongoing and upcoming plans and create a strategic agenda moving forward.
During the year-end review, you can talk to your MSP about their partnership and how well/poorly they have done to support your business goals. You will also be able to evaluate values and create a great technology roadmap for your business.
The bottom line is that a year-end technology review is smart because it reveals the strengths and weaknesses of your technology framework. It is also one of the best tools to ensure business transparency, success and customer satisfaction.
Benefits of Year-End Technology Reviews
Here are the benefits of having a year-end technology review.
- Powerful Business Tools
A year-end tech review is a powerful business tool. It provides insights into how the past business year was spent through metrics and other data.
- Improved Performance
Just as the year-end review clarifies your goals and expectations for the business, a year-end tech review can provide a benchmark to see the technology’s performance. This review gives you the opportunity to improve your technology’s performance.
- Increase Productivity
A year-end technology review shows you what processes are hindering your business operations. This allows you to come up with solutions that will boost your productivity.
- Enhance Security and Compliance
A year-end review can uncover security issues within your business. You will be able to see missed patches, poorly configured networks and other vulnerabilities that hackers or cybercriminals can exploit.
- Training and Development
In the business world, employees are required to stay updated on technology’s best practices, cyber threats and security and other initiatives. A year-end tech review provides an excellent opportunity to identify and discuss areas where your employees need to be trained. In addition, the review helps you clarify their roles.
- Put You on the Right Track
A year-end review keeps you up to date on the current technology trends and ways that you can implement them to boost your business productivity in the coming year. Whether your goal is to increase productivity, security or profit, a year-end review puts you on the right track.
Things to Handle During the Year-End Technology Review
Below are areas that you can handle during your year-end technology review:
Current Status of Backups
Data backups are essential to every business and its IT infrastructure. This is because data backups are crucial factors in data recovery. During the year-end review, you can check the status of your data backup infrastructure. Having a secure backup infrastructure ensures your company’s data is safe in case of a system failure or cyber-attack.
Technical Review
This is one aspect that you should solely focus on and should make up the bulk of your year-end review. This gives you the chance to highlight the value that technology has brought while also revealing some areas where processes could be improved. To give a thorough picture, the technical review must cover every area of your services.
The following should be addressed in your technical review:
- Endpoint Security
Endpoint security is a crucial but frequently disregarded component of a company’s offerings. Businesses don’t think about endpoint security until something goes wrong and that can cause a lot of headaches. During the year-end review, talk about the proactive endpoint activities in your business. You can also provide stats about threats and antivirus activities.
This establishes transparency and gives you a complete picture of the work you’re doing to protect your assets. It also offers an opportunity to agree on goals and show that you are knowledgeable about the security environment.
- Patch Management
Patches are the first line of defense. Therefore, it is essential that you discuss them with your MSP to know how to handle them. Specifically, identify which machines are fully patched, which machines lack patches (and how many patches those machines lack) and the causes for any lags in the machines.
- Network Security
Protecting your network against viruses and other threats is vital as this keeps your business safe. Therefore, during your year-end review, highlight some essential elements of your network security that need to be improved.
- Equipment and Software
Every day there is an update to technologies or new ones are being released. This calls for advancement in the technologies in your business. During your review, discuss technologies that should be updated or brought in. This brings about an increase in productivity.
Need Help with Your Year-End Technology Review?
Ready to implement the year-end technology review at your company? Sound Computers has you covered. We will help you with everything needed to make the most of your year-end review.
Contact us now to get started.