WingSwept spends substantial time making sure that each client’s technology is supporting their goals – for many clients, these goals include increasing efficiency, maximizing returns, and supporting future growth. But one goal that all of our clients share is minimizing the risk posed by a major technology failure.
When discussing technology risk, everyone is familiar with the hot topics – ransomware, failed or absent backups, phishing emails and network intrusions are all getting plenty of attention. There’s one other major area we consider, which is the age of your technology infrastructure.
We generally do not recommend companies pursue the most cutting-edge technology. This may seem surprising, coming from a company that supports technology – while it might present some exciting opportunity for your business (and would certainly generate excitement among our engineers) we find that the risk level is too high. By purchasing brand-new technology, your company is essentially paying extra to be a technology tester, and it will likely lead to headaches along the way.
Letting your technology grow obsolete is also a very expensive decision. The hardware is much more likely to fail at the time you can least afford it to do so, and there will be no way to do a quick, apples-for-apples hardware replacement as the technology is no longer on the market. Additionally, the manufacturer will have discontinued support of the hardware or software, increasing the likelihood of unpatched security gaps that can threaten not just the obsolete hardware, but your entire network.
WingSwept’s goal is to keep your company in the “happy middle” – a place where your technology has been sufficiently tested before you deploy it, but it hasn’t reached a point where the manufacturer is no longer supporting it. In addition to minimizing your risk, this is also the most affordable solution for most businesses.
This doesn’t mean we recommend the same solutions for each company. Depending on how important specific technology innovations are to your business’s efficiency, we may recommend some companies pursue a given technology during the early adopter phase. In cases where the new innovations offer little in the way of advancements, we might recommend purchasing more mature technologies, which have been marketed for years. But we’ll always make sure that you understand where you are on the risk curve, and why we’ve recommended that particular option.
Want to know where your company is on the risk curve? Give WingSwept’s Managed Services team a call at 919.779.0954 or contact us online.