Is Your Business in “Technical Debt”?
Proactive IT maintenance and management is the best way to ensure your business avoids network downtime and keeps staff productive and happy.
It’s also an important way to control your IT costs.
In previous blogs we’ve shown how downtime leads directly to lost budget and productivity, which can have a serious impact on the financial health of your business.
But preventing downtime isn’t the only way that proactive IT management can cost your business money.
“Technical debt” is a term that refers to when a business makes quick technology repairs to their network, without addressing root causes of a problem. This approach of prioritizing short-term over long-term IT requirements costs businesses serious money over time, as those fundamental issues slowly erode business efficiency and morale.
The Significant Cost of Technology Debt
Do you have an old computer, server, or system that your staff must continually work around or manage to stay productive? How about two systems that simply don’t interwork, causing you to lose out on an obvious efficiency?
A McKinsey study estimates the cost of its tech debt at between 15% and 60% of every dollar spent on information technology, despite not being included in most business analysis.
– McKinsey, “Demystifying Digital Dark Matter”Nearly four in 10 CIOs surveyed recently in a recent CIO Sentiment Survey by IDC said they expect to overspend on digital infrastructure over the next 18 months. And 47% percent of those who expect to overspend blamed excessive tech debt, including old applications.
– IDC, “CIO Sentiment Survey”IT directors report that from 10% to 20% of the budget allocated for new tech products is actually absorbed in solving existing tech debt problems.
– CodeScene, “Business Cost of Technical Debt”
Those are common examples of technical debt, and the financial damage it causes businesses can add up fast. There have been many studies that demonstrate the corrosive effects of technology debt.
The problems of technical debt, outdated systems, and incompatibility become more important as a business moves through the digital transformation process. Adopting cloud technologies, artificial intelligence, advanced cybersecurity, and other new tools all become more difficult and more expensive when you’re saddled with technical debt.
How to Conquer the Technical Debt Problem
So, what can your business do about it? Below, we’ll explore some of these strategies you can use to conquer technical debt.
Gather Input and Intelligence
First, start thinking about your network and its weak points. Sometimes your technical debt is easy to spot. If a server or workstation crashes every month, or your phone system’s call quality is bad, then you know exactly where to start.
If you have systems that are struggling, but you can’t quite understand why, then may need to run what’s known as a network audit.
A network audit is deep, holistic examination of your business technology. This helps you go beyond just identifying the system that’s out of date or causing problems but understanding the dependencies on those systems. If you replace a network bottleneck, like outdated routers or switches, will it affect your security program in any way?
Document Your Technology
Many businesses struggle with documenting their network technology but knowing exactly what you have and the state its in is another important step toward conquering technical debt.
For each of our clients, we create an exhausted inventory of their network technology, including hardware devices, software, network connections, firmware versions, server log information, data backups and an exhaustive list of other, very detailed information.
However, you don’t have to go this deep to at least start creating good network documentation. A simple spreadsheet to track your devices, when they were purchased, and when they were last serviced will help your team uncover systems that need an update.
Most people don’t find this process particularly enjoyable, but having that visibility is an important way to identify technologies that are harming your network efficiency and costing you money. Here at Astute Technology, we use some specialized tools to make that work faster and more repeatable.
Plan a Roadmap for Your IT
Once you know where your weaknesses are and the impact they’re having on your network, it’s time to build a plan.
An IT roadmap is a centralized document that communicates to everyone across your organization what IT systems updates and changes you’re going to make, when you’re going to make then, and who in your organization will be responsible for each part of that evolution.
Armed with a documented network and a roadmap, you’ll know exactly how to budget for technical debt remediation.
A well written roadmap has so many other benefits as well, like tying technical debt to business objectives, help keeping projects on schedule, and helping your whole team understands the importance of strategic technology upgrades.
To read more about developing an IT roadmap, we recommend reading this article here.
Remember: Proactive Updates Are Critical
Patching and updating, like network documentation, isn’t at the top of most business leader’s “to-do” list, but it’s a critical part of keeping your technical debt at bay. While proactively keeping systems updated with the latest software patches and firmware, you can gather intelligence about incompatibilities or obsolete tools that could cause problems down the road.
Conquer Technical Debt with a Trusted IT Partner
The best way to streamline your budget is to partner with an IT services firm who has experience tackling technical debt and other complex IT management issues. If you’re struggling with outdated IT, we urge you to contact our team at 614 389 4102 or [email protected] with any questions you may have. We look forward to speaking with you!
