Business Tech: It’s not sexy, but IT reporting can save you money in the long run

Business technology solutions are rarely sexy. They’re built to be reliable workhorses that perform day in and day out. They don’t worry about all the glitz and glamour that consumer electronics thrive on. Just like the hardware and systems themselves, IT reporting isn’t visually stunning. However, it can have a big impact on your bottom line.

Most small and medium-sized businesses have enough on their hands just to keep key systems up and running. They also frequently don’t have resources to allow them to do reporting on their IT. They also don’t understand the value it can provide.

Here are a few types of IT reporting that can make a significant impact on the bottom line:

IT Response Times. Response time is key in IT. When your business is down, or your employees can’t get their job done because if IT issues, it costs your business money. Downtime reached an estimated cost of $700 billion per year in 2016 — and the costs are rising. With more businesses being dependent on their technology, outages are costlier than ever in lost productivity.

Contributing factors to this can be things like overworked IT staff or poor service provided by hourly IT providers. It can go a long way to have a working knowledge of how long it’s currently taking your business to resolve IT issues. This allows you to change workflows as needed to address it with your team. Alternatively, many managed service providers offer service level guarantees. IT reporting that gives visibility into current response times can help you to refine systems for better results.

Inventory. Having a good handle on the exact IT hardware you have across your organization can also help to save dollars. Most technology will need to be cycled on a three-to-five-year basis depending on the hardware. Knowing the age of all of your equipment and key stats allows you to budget for upcoming expenses and plan for the future. This kind of planning almost always results in cost savings and is typically part of a larger strategic plan for IT. Outdated hardware carries with it much higher maintenance and warranty costs that can be avoided with careful planning.

Root Cause Analysis. Frequently overlooked is an analysis of common issues on the network that cause downtime. IT departments and providers sometimes find themselves fixing the same issue repeatedly. This multiplies the cost of downtime and support. Doing some root cause analysis on issues tackled in the past three to six months can give visibility into recurring problems. The identification of these problems will allow you to dig in and find root cause. Once that is known, permanent solutions can be put in place. Fixing things once is great, but fixing them forever is better. Reporting that helps dig deep at the root of problems can save your business significantly on support costs.

Maintenance Reporting. With evolving threats to cybersecurity rampant in the world, a knowledge that key maintenance and security items are happening regularly is important. IT departments and providers should be providing information about the status of Microsoft patches and updates, antivirus and backups, for example. While the savings from this reporting is perhaps more indirect, regular network maintenance can prevent costly downtime. This is especially significant in the current world of evolving cyber threats. Patches and updates can actually prevent much of today’s ransomware, and offer greater peace of mind to business owners.

There isn’t anything glamorous about it, but good IT reporting can have an impact on your bottom line. It can help business leaders make educated decisions about the technology you use daily. It can resolve common problems and prevent downtime. If your technology team isn’t providing quality reporting that empowers your IT decisions, now is the time to make it a priority.

Mike Herrington is the manager of business development at i.t.NOW.