Business Benefits of a Strong IT Infrastructure

The IT infrastructure is the foundation of your company, and it's critical to the everyday operations of your business. Without it, you can't keep up with customer service requests or make progress on key initiatives. But when it's working properly, an effective IT infrastructure can help your company achieve success in many ways—from faster response times for customers to more flexibility for employees.

Stronger Accessibility

With stronger IT comes stronger accessibility. Having access to necessary information is quite literally crucial—your business can’t operate without it. The right IT infrastructure will ensure every part of the business has access to what they need across:

• Business continuity: If you can't gain access to your company's data, you won't be able to continue operations as usual.
• Employee productivity: If employees are unable to access the information they need from their devices or from the cloud, they will be less productive at work.
• Customer satisfaction: If customers can't interact with your website or app, this could lead them away from your business and toward one of your competitors'.
• Business growth: Accessibility doesn't just benefit the current state of things; it also helps grow businesses in general by allowing them greater ease in reaching new markets and audiences through technology platforms such as websites and mobile applications.

Faster Recovery and Response Time

When you think about the importance of your business' IT infrastructure, do you think about it in terms of fast recovery and response time? If the answer is no, then it's time to reconsider.

If your network goes down or is otherwise compromised, you need to make sure customers are able to access all the information they need by using another device (like their laptop) while still being able to contact customer service via phone or chat without any delays. A strong IT infrastructure, with a well-thought-out disaster recovery plan, can help ensure that you’re always available when customers need you—which will ultimately positively impact your bottom line. At a time when customer service and experience is more important than ever, having a surefire DR plan, and IT infrastructure to support it, is crucial. 

Greater Security

One of the biggest benefits of a robust IT infrastructure is that it can help you avoid costly security breaches. It puts you in a stronger position to protect against hackers, viruses, malware, and other cyberthreats. 

A strong IT infrastructure won’t have a lot of unnecessary systems and applications or other technical debt, helping to keep information safer. It also enables you to have more visibility into problems so when things do go awry, you can locate the problem and fix it as soon as possible. 

When it comes to compliance with regulations like HIPAA and PCI DSS, IT also makes a difference there. These regulations require strict standards around data protection and privacy. When you have a reliable security system in place, your company is better equipped to meet these standards with confidence — which means less stress (and potential fines) for everyone involved.

Higher System Performance

System performance is critical to the success of any business, because it can affect many aspects of your company’s operations. For example, if you have too much network traffic on your network and not enough bandwidth, this can lead to poor performance for your employees and customers alike. You could also see a dip in productivity and customer satisfaction as a result of system downtime.

A strong IT infrastructure helps ensure you have visibility into network traffic, and can adjust when needed. Network monitor and load test tools, such as New Relic and Jmeter, help ensure you’re aware of any network slow-downs, and take the necessary measures to fix it. Your infrastructure should be built with network bandwidth in mind and allow you to scale up and down as needed. Doing so helps ensure everyone can access needed information, both employees and customers. 

When it comes to the IT infrastructure, you probably think of it as a necessary evil: something that keeps your company running smoothly and allows employees to do their jobs. But the reality is there are many ways in which strong IT infrastructure benefits businesses and their bottom lines. By investing in a strong IT infrastructure, businesses can improve their accessibility, responsiveness and security as well as offer more flexible options for employees—all of which will ultimately help them grow over time.

We’re happy to help you on your IT journey, whether you’re just getting started or need a partner to take you from Chaos to Clarity. Get started with a complimentary assessment or contact us today.