Fifosys Initial Assessment: Maximise Your Potential with an IT Audit

Working with a managed service provider is a great way to get the most out of your IT setup. However, too many service providers focus on simplistic, off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all solutions, without giving the appropriate level of consideration to individual organisations and their specific circumstances.

At Fifosys, we prefer to work with small and medium enterprises on a much closer level, tailoring our services to your needs. One of the ways we do this is through an initial assessment or audit. In this post, we explain the benefits of this process and highlight how it can help you to maximise your potential.

The Need for an IT Audit

For the majority of small and medium enterprises, IT systems, networks and infrastructure have become increasingly important. Typically, organisations are more heavily reliant on data than in the past and working hours are also often less clearly defined, with more people working flexibly and remotely.

Business continuity is a top priority and any downtime at all can be extremely costly. At the same time, however, threats like social engineering and cyber attacks are on the rise. For these reasons, you need to make sure you have the right security strategy in place and you need to make sure you are getting the most from your IT strategy.

Many organisations work with managed service providers who only really intervene in times of crisis, or when systems fail. These MSPs often adopt a simplistic approach, where they replace like-for-like. Here at Fifosys, we prefer to adopt a much more holistic, long-term strategy, helping you to take your business to the next level.

To do this, we carry out an IT audit, where we get to know your current situation and what you would like to change. The audit also allows us to identify any areas of concern and provide recommendations for actions you can take.

Now, Next and Beyond

Another major benefit of this initial assessment is the ability to get a sense of where your business currently stands, where you expect to be in the next few years, and what your long-term aims and objectives are. This then allows us to work with you on a strategy that considers the "now, next and beyond".

A good example of this can be seen with our work with The Santon Group; one of the largest private developers in the UK. One of the big challenges the organisation faced was carrying out an office relocation, updating their IT infrastructure in the process, while simultaneously keeping business downtime to the absolute minimum.

We wanted to get to know the business and understand their long-term goals too. It was found that future expansion was a major focus and, as a result, we worked with the organisation, creating a new centralised IT infrastructure, while also ensuring it can be expanded easily in the future, without requiring another complete re-design.

Our eventual solution delivered on this while providing the company with flexibility, cost-savings and the ability to recover quickly and minimise downtime, even in the event of a major data disaster.

On-Going Partnerships

It is also important to understand that an audit can serve as the basis for an ongoing partnership. We continue to work with many of our clients over the longer term, delivering on their instructions, but also helping them to identify areas for improvement, or to address areas of high risk.

For instance, we worked with the London Claremont Clinic, as they wanted to move towards a fully managed IT infrastructure. We recommended a cloud-based solution, assisted them with implementing it and continue to work with them, providing continuous service desk support and stepping in when any issues arise.

With an ongoing working relationship of this kind, the initial auditing process plays a valuable role in bringing us closer to the businesses we work with and helping us to understand their long-term needs.

This then allows us to strategically align our services to your goals, to help you maximise your potential.

The Last Word

All of us at Fifosys believe in the power of genuine collaboration and the importance of strategic alignment. We are keen to work with your organisation, getting to know your current situation and your prospects, so that we can fully tailor our services and so that you can get the absolute most out of your IT strategy.

The best way to achieve this is through an initial audit, where we can identify strengths, weaknesses, areas of risk and areas of potential and then make recommendations, based on your specific circumstances and needs.