As we move into Spring many businesses will be finalising their 2019 business plans and objectives, including IT developments and investments for the year ahead.
With the increasingly rapid pace of change in the IT industry, the days of 3-5 year IT plans are behind us. Most organisations are breaking their IT developments into annual plans and milestones. This is guided by a long term strategic goal such as reducing complexity or size of onsite systems, improving security and mobility or increasing efficiency by moving towards open, SaaS based applications with greater integration capabilities.
This enables organisations to remain flexible, adapt to change and take advantage of the latest IT developments that can help benefit their business.
As businesses finalise their plans for 2019 there are a number of important external factors or industry milestones that will play an important role in determining some of 2019’s primary objectives.
Windows 7 Support & Windows Server 2008 Support
Every Microsoft product has a “life cycle” which begins when a product is released and determines when Microsoft will stop supporting the software, including providing critical security updates.
2019 is a major year in Microsoft’s product life cycle window with the highly successful and popular Windows 7 Operating System reaching its End of Life along with its ‘back office’ sibling, Windows Server 2008.
Due to its reliability and popularity over so many years, many businesses still have a large number of Windows 7 based devices and 2019 is the year these will have to be upgraded or replaced.
Whilst on the face of it this is a routine life-cycle upgrade, there a number of benefits businesses can realise with an upgrade to and deployment of the latest Windows Operating Systems:
- Improved efficiency with the latest suite of productivity tools , usability enhancements and integrations
- Significantly improved security to help protect and secure your digital assets
- Deep integration with the latest Cloud platforms such as Microsoft Office 365 and Azure
So, why not start with a thorough inventory and audit of your current estate, and talk to Vital about hardware, upgrade, leasing and finance options that could help make this transition as easy as possible?
Cyber Security, GDPR and Data Protection
The much-hyped GDPR regulations have been in effect for almost a year. 2018 has been another year filled with large scale data and security breaches affecting individuals and businesses of all sizes.
2019 is a year in which all organisations should take stock of their security and data protection mechanisms – the days of leaving this to ‘the IT guy’ are over and all businesses need to be addressing their compliance, security and data protection needs at board level.
In 2019, we expect – and are already witnessing – many of Vital’s and the wider IT industry’s longstanding security recommendations shifting into must have, basic security mechanisms. These are either included or mandatory in an increasing number of places; be that through software or application requirements or industry, compliance or customer demands.
Cloud & mobility
We – the IT industry and businesses in general – have been talking about ‘the cloud’ for years. The concept is now proven, accepted and ubiquitous with organisations of all sizes recognising and adopting cloud services as the most secure, reliable and effective choice for a huge range of IT and business systems and applications. The rapid pace of change in this area means the opportunities today are much different than they were even 12 months ago, so make sure your 2019 plans include or make use of the latest cloud developments.
If you don’t feel prepared for changes through 2019 and into 2020, please get in touch and speak to one of our IT strategy specialists on: 0333 241 9301 or make contact below:
