Business Growth Through IT Infrastructure for Medium-Sized Enterprises
Robust IT infrastructure is becoming increasingly crucial in running modern businesses. Data shows that companies that persistently invest in technology enjoy 2.6 times more returns than their peers.
The advantages that these businesses enjoy that promote business growth include more value to the customer, data-driven decision-making, less operational overheads, optimized investments, and a faster speed to market.
Let’s look deeper into IT infrastructure, what it is, and how investing in it will transform your medium-sized enterprise.
What is IT Infrastructure?
Information technology infrastructure, commonly known as IT infrastructure, is a group of IT components, including hardware, software, resources, and networks, that work together to help test, develop, monitor, deliver, control, and support an enterprise’s IT environment.
With a well-managed IT infrastructure, a business can enjoy operational continuity that ensures better productivity, connectivity, and security for employees and customers.
Employees do their jobs better with a robust IT infrastructure. Your IT infrastructure also helps keep your business relevant in the market with a changing technology landscape. Therefore, it should be regularly updated in line with technological advancements.
Up-to-date IT infrastructure is often reliable, secure, and helps the enterprise achieve its goals, giving it a competitive edge. With the right IT infrastructure, you also get adequate protection against cyberattacks, downtimes, and other events that might hamper service delivery or operations.
Why Does Investing in IT Infrastructure Matter in Business Growth?
Businesses across various industries are not taking IT infrastructure lightly. A study by Deloitte shows that companies in the banking and security sectors are among the highest investors in IT infrastructure, spending 7.16% of their budget on it.
Construction sits at the bottom of the list, with only 1.51% invested in technology. That’s still a considerable amount for the industry.
But why spend all this money on tools that are changing fast and seemingly apply to only “tech-driven” enterprises?
Digital Transformation Is Not Just in the Cloud
The cloud is one of the most adopted technological tools by small to medium-sized businesses. Data shows that about 44% of traditional small enterprises already use the cloud.
However, digital transformation is not fixed to the cloud. The cloud only increases the efficiency of the technology tools a business has adopted to improve productivity and service delivery.
Software Gets Updated
It is common for businesses to adopt software and then forget to maintain it or regularly get updates to improve its performance and functionality. However, software sits at the core of IT infrastructure, limiting how much you can do with existing systems.
New software and updates improve security and introduce powerful features to boost enterprise growth, such as AI, machine learning, and analytics tools.
IT Networks Need Constant Upgrades
Network upgrades are complex but necessary to ensure optimal IT service delivery by an enterprise. Older systems require extended downtimes to effect upgrades, causing a poor experience and potential revenue losses.
Modern IT networks are software-based, with little need for hardware changes and minimal downtime to upgrade the network and improve performance plus security.
How Investing in IT Infrastructure Encourages Business Growth in Medium-Sized Enterprises
As you pour considerable resources into your IT infrastructure, here’s what your business will get in return.
Additional Value to Your Customer
The primary goal of your enterprise should be to give the most value to your customers through your products and services. The business’s website and IT infrastructure are crucial in achieving this.
For instance, with a well-developed website, customers enjoy a smoother shopping experience, quicker access to information, and better online support. These add more value to your brand while significantly improving business growth and reputation.
Revenue Boost
With a solid IT infrastructure, you can maximize your medium-sized enterprise’s revenue by improving service delivery and efficiency of operations. Existing technologies get to perform much better with proper maintenance, and new tools add essential features that give you a competitive edge.
For instance, apart from running a robust IT infrastructure, you can move it to the cloud to improve interoperability, streamline processes, improve accessibility, and provide better security, all of which positively influence the business’s bottom line.
Data-Driven Decision Making
Modern businesses need data to edge the competition. Research shows that 97.2% of companies are investing heavily in big data and AI projects. 24% already describe their organizations as truly data-driven.
Robust IT infrastructure gives you access to tons of data you can extract and interpret to make informed business decisions. This data can be website traffic, social media interactions, or page views.
You can keep track of critical metrics and store data from multiple sources to generate better insights. With these insights, you can understand consumer behavior, monitor website traffic, optimize the customer experience, and assess the health of your business.
Improved Employee Experience and Productivity
As employee experience and productivity grows, so do business operations improve. IT infrastructure makes it easier for employees to upskill, enhancing their work experience, and leading to greater satisfaction and productivity.
You can use software tools that improve team collaboration, employee engagement, learning experience, and employee recognition to have a highly motivated and efficient team with excellent talent retention.
Reduced Overhead
Robust IT infrastructure reduces business overhead and promotes a smoother running of business operations. You get better documentation, inventory management, monitoring, and business management, allowing your processes and service delivery to operate optimally.
Your IT department will spend less time trying to keep systems alive, spending more on building new features and improving IT service delivery. You also deal with less paperwork, and information flows through the organization faster.
Optimized Investments
With a well-built IT infrastructure, your systems will run at optimized performance for longer with minimum downtimes. You’ll be making the best use of your enterprise’s investments in terms of equipment and human resource.
You should adhere to best practices such as proper documentation, monitoring, and maintenance schedules to ensure the IT infrastructure can optimally support existing investments.
Faster Speed to Market
A robust IT infrastructure improves the speed of research and development, making it faster to bring new products and services to market. You can use machine learning and data analytics to design better products and run informed tests that ensure the success of the new product or service.
You’ll also be able to meet increased demands for your products and services faster, satisfying customer needs.
Get in Touch with a Trusted IT Partner and Transform Your IT Infrastructure
A robust IT infrastructure will give you a competitive edge in the market and improve your business’s bottom line. Get in touch with a trusted IT partner today and learn how your business can be IT-enabled.