Most Overlooked IT Issues for Business

Most Overlooked IT Issues for Business

The availability of increasingly more powerful and affordable technology has been a great boost for small businesses of all stripes. It has also meant that business owners need to sort through a tremendous number of technology options and find the best ways to use technology to achieve business purposes. Entrepreneurs will face a variety of technology issues during the course of business, ranging from conducting research to handling upgrades to using social media tools.

Information technology is a crucial aspect for any business because it takes place across so many areas. With employees enjoying more tech-related freedoms from phones to unrestricted Internet use, there are many smaller IT problems that get passed over in favor of seemingly larger problems.

If they go without being properly addressed, however, these smaller issues can easily turn into larger ones.

1. The Crisis of Cost Management
Cost management is another overlooked IT issue, mainly because most professionals in the industry take it as a given that their projects will exceed estimated costs. Most budgets allow for some wiggle room, but the problem is that when a business has several IT projects going on at once, they're hemorrhaging money on the overhead.

If five separate projects go even a thousand over budget, there's $5,000 in the tank in just one quarter. To that end, it would probably work better if IT professionals overestimated their budgets from the get-go.

2. The Issue of Inter-Office Dating
You probably wouldn't think dating in the office would become much of a problem, especially in the IT arena. After all, people date and get married within office settings all the time, to the point that it's rarely addressed any longer. The IT field, however, can often get competitive, if not outright cutthroat.

If two IT professionals are either dating or married and start going after the same projects, things get fairly awkward around the office. Worse, their work itself might get somehow compromised or they could try to sabotage each other.

3. The Capacity Catastrophe

It's incredibly important for a business's networks and servers to have plenty of capacity. While crashes occasionally occur, you can quickly lose business if people try to visit your website or blog and receive an error message. If you sell popular products, your server capacity is even more essential, especially around high volume dates and times.

It's crucial to thoroughly research the many benefits of capacity planning to make sure your servers are always up and running smoothly.

4. The Question of Knowledge

A lot of companies also make the mistake of employing IT experts. While this is a great idea in the main, if you only have one expert in a given field, that person will get stretched thin over several different projects. Instead of focusing solely on one task, the expert will have to work quickly on several items, which can become detrimental. It's better to either have your expert train your other IT techs, hire well-rounded employees, or get several experts for each area.

5. The Manic Panic of Mergers
Mergers occur, and they're hard on employees. When two businesses come together, everyone worries about possibly losing their jobs. With the IT department, this worry is particularly pronounced, since so many businesses already have so many IT employees.

Worse, when separate systems merge, information can get lost or destroyed, and people are extremely confused about which protocols to follow.

Because IT is so essential, it's vital for businesses to discuss even those issues they may not consider hugely important. They often lead to larger problems that can cause more serious issues for the company. Companies risk project over-runs as training budgets cut