Why IT assessments are key for IT modernization for Enterprises

The rapidly accelerating business landscape continues to make digital transformation an imperative. However, digital transformation is dependent on IT modernization. 

Modernizing infrastructures, applications, processes, governance, and skills for contemporary businesses has many benefits, including gaining a competitive edge, increased business agility, faster delivery times, and reduced costs. Also, enterprises can quickly access big data that enables smooth business insights, helping enhance service levels and customer experiences. 

Early adopters of IT modernization are reaping its rewards, such as streamlined operations and improved customer experiences. Still, 95% of organizations face challenges in their modernization efforts.

What do organizations need to do right to ensure IT modernization success?

This article delves into IT assessments and why they help unlock successful IT modernization for enterprises. 

IT Assessments 

In today’s business world, technology plays a critical and influential role. 

Nevertheless, technology will work best for your business only if you consistently assess its implementation, management, and support. 

Doing so refers to conducting an IT assessment. It means performing comprehensive and thorough reviews of your company’s technology environment and systems resulting in written evaluations and recommendations. 

IT assessments evaluate whether current technology systems help or hinder the core business and recommend how to use newer technologies to meet your business goals and objectives. 

That means a practical IT assessment looks at your current technology systems to identify strengths, weaknesses, and vulnerabilities and suggests approaches to improve them to help adopt effective IT modernization. 

Not assessing your IT systems means your organization can easily get left behind or stuck when it comes to seeing through effective IT modernization. 

Therefore, it’s always good practice to perform a thorough technology assessment, especially by partnering with a professional IT services and digital solutions provider for IT assessment services–no matter the size of your business. 

IT Assessments: IT Modernization Roadmap

As mentioned above, IT assessments ensure technology is meeting your business goals. Additionally, technology assessments provide you with a specific and measurable blueprint for improving your current technologies with a focus on helping achieve your set business objectives.

Furthermore, it can also ensure that your technology and security comply with required guidelines and best practices.

Key Areas for Assessment for IT Modernization 

• Infrastructure modernization 

Without a tailor-fit IT infrastructure, you have no effective structure to span and support your overall business processes.

An IT assessment evaluates and recommends the proper structure design for the hardware, software, network resources, and services required for an operative and effective IT environment for your enterprise. 

• Network modernization 

Your network systems hold the backbone of your entire organization and can be a significant bottleneck if they are still running on legacy applications.

An IT assessment provides comprehensive performance of your network with recommendations based on traffic, conflicts, errors, etc., allowing you to set the stage for effective modernization if necessary. Remember, investing in cutting-edge network devices that would be attached to a sub-optimal network is likely to be a waste of your time and money. 

• Application modernization

Using legacy apps can pull behind your company's operations and efficiency.

Assessing your current apps helps you work out an application performance review that shows whether you are ready to take advantage of newer apps, languages, frameworks, and infrastructure platforms.

• Security modernization 

Data and information security are critical to any business, small or large.

An IT assessment helps evaluate and make recommendations that will ensure no security loopholes aiding the development of a bulletproof IT environment for all your business processes. 

• IT skills modernization 

An adequate IT infrastructure also spans the right talent and skills for implementing, managing, and maintaining your IT systems. In today’s increasingly digital world, there’s a need for IT roles that were not in existence several years ago, such as DevOps engineers, AI engineers, chief data officers, data architects, data scientists, and more.

An IT assessment looks through your current in-house and external IT team to evaluate whether you need to expand or upskill it as you adopt modernization. 

To conduct a fair and transparent IT assessment in the areas above, its good practice to focus on the following: 

• People - Their roles and organizational structure
• Process - Main services and operational processes
• Technology - IT infrastructure, systems, and technologies 

Benefits of an IT Assessment for your Business

• Helps create a long-term strategy for IT modernization that aligns with business objectives without service disruption. 
• Helps detect hardware and software risks through a comprehensive checklist that identifies potential issues or threats 
• Helps perform risk analysis and conflict resolution that tracks technology vulnerabilities and identifies critical areas that need immediate attention, enhancing continued business operations.
• Unlocks business growth opportunities by identifying the current technology infrastructure benefits for your workforce, clientele, and partners. 
• Aids in identifying opportunities for cost optimization through IT consulting services providers that can assist you in assessing your current IT allocation, usage, and revenue generation. 
• Helps immediately apply robust and scalable security measures if there’s the identification of systems and data vulnerabilities 
• Supports the building and implementation of effective disaster recovery plans and business continuity procedures, ensuring you won't lose important data and information brought about by ill-prepared IT systems. 
• Helps you quickly adopt new technologies setting you ahead of the competition for increased business growth and productivity. 

IT Modernization: Next Steps?

Many business entities are progressing in IT modernization and achieving their goals with benefits, including gaining business value from data, faster marketing, and minimized risks to adopting digital processes. 

Conducting an IT assessment provides a comprehensive and structured approach for firms to understand better where they stand to ensure a positive outcome towards building a strong, modern, and better-performing IT environment. 

If your company is looking to modernize for IT and business transformation, it helps to trust and partner with a professional team to help you identify and understand your status and IT assessment requirements. An experienced IT services team skillfully helps understand your needs and charts a strategic course that accelerates, simplifies, and improves the entire process.

Learn more about how the Pronix team can help you develop and support your modernization goals. Contact our experts today!