Investing in Our Future
By David Cork, Genova Technologies IT Analyst
During the last six months, we’ve implemented several enhancements to our network infrastructure. These changes include upgrading our internal accounting system, migrating our in-house Exchange and SharePoint servers to Office 365, enhancing our server backups, and building a new web site. Undertaking any one of these tasks had the potential to disrupt our day-to-day operations, and we chose to tackle them all. Genova is fortunate, however, to have a management team that understands we need to invest in ourselves if we wish to remain competitive.
In addition to recognizing the need to dedicate capital to our infrastructure, management also sees the wisdom in forging partnerships with outside experts when the need arises. We are a technology company, but we are not web designers. Our internal IT staff has years of experience with Microsoft Exchange, but we have not migrated to Office 365. We have a talented accounting department who has not led an upgrade of our accounting package. We could have theoretically handled all of this internally, but we knew that the process would have been significantly more stressful for all concerned, and the end result might have been less polished, especially in the case of our web site.
Each of our upgrades was based on a business need. We are not in the habit of upgrading our infrastructure just so that we’re running the latest and greatest. By the same token, we try to not postpone upgrades to the point where we’re spending a dollar to save a dime. In each case, our business needs were relatively simple. The accounting system was approaching end of life; we recognized an opportunity to reduce costs by moving to Office 365; we realized that a current web site could help us attract and retain quality employees and customers, and we understand the importance of data retention and business continuity planning.
Undertaking all of this at once was not painless, but our partners provided experience, knowledge and expertise that made these projects significantly easier. It’s gratifying to work for a company that understands the benefits of hiring consultants when the need arises, and the advantages of investing in our future.
