5 Consequences of Doing Nothing About Your IT Issues

Doing Nothing Is a Decision

When you decide to do nothing about your IT issues, the time and energy you think you’ll save by staying with the status quo can turn into consequences that exacerbate your situation and put your business goals out of reach. Yes, change can be difficult, especially when the new direction to go is not clear, but educating yourself about IT solutions and choosing the one that is going to net the results you want will help you avoid these five consequences of doing nothing about your IT problems.

1. Higher Labor Costs

When employees have to wait for slow applications or don’t have the right technology tools for their work, they aren’t as productive as they could be. Trying to make software do something that it wasn’t meant to do doesn’t save time or costs. Creating work-arounds for technology issues could compromise security in addition to take time away from the work that employees should be doing to take care of customers. Companies that fall behind with technology often have employees doing duplicate work, entering and using data in multiple sources that don’t always add up to the same result for everyone.

2. Employee Frustration and Turnover

Imagine how someone feels when they go to work each day knowing that they are going to struggle. How much employee loyalty does that stir up? Not a lot. Most people want to do their best but when technology roadblocks their success in how they can do their job and meet customer needs, they aren’t the result is low morale and company loyalty. Frustrated employees aren’t going to provide the best customer service, and if they see a better opportunity to be successful elsewhere, they will be tempted to take it.

3. Wrong IT Investments

Some piece of your network hardware or software breaks and you have to fix or replace it. If you haven’t done the planning that is necessary to anticipate future needs, you may make a decision that will backfire in the future. What might seem like the cheapest route to go could end up surprising you with additional costs. For example, finding out you need to upgrade your network to handle the cloud services that you just purchased. IT consulting might seem like a luxury but paying for break/fix support is a lost investment.

4. Security Breach

Security is definitely not the place where you should just maintain the status quo. Those workarounds that your employees are doing might be compromising your business information. Letting employees use their own mobile devices to connect to your network could be opening entry ways for cybercriminals. The free anti-virus you use isn’t sufficient to protect you from an ever-evolving cyber arsenal. The impact of a breach is significant in trust and reputation and can affect the ability of your business to continue.

5. Financial Unpredictability

If you are in charge of the finances in a company where IT issues don’t get addressed, you face a daily deluge of uncertainty and risk. Is the next fix going to be a little bump or a big hit? Will the next downtime event cause the company to miss a deadline and lose your biggest customer? Growing a business doesn’t usually happen without careful financial management and planning for the future. It might seem ironic, but building a business on a predictable financial foundation actually allows it to be more flexible when it’s time to pivot and change as the business landscape changes.

IT Issues Make Your Business Struggle

When IT issues do not get addressed, the business struggles in all areas. Business processes are reliant on technology and when the technology can’t perform, the business can’t either. It’s like trying to compete in a car race when your car keeps breaking down. You certainly aren’t going to beat your competitors, and you might not even make it to the finish line.

If you want different results from IT support, you don't just need a different solution, you need a different approach - an approach that will give you the experience you want. Contact us to schedule a meeting to have a business conversation about your technology. Call 855-767-2571 or give us your contact info and we'll call you.