Alex Williams

Although I have recently returned to a non-management position, I still feel the need to share my thoughts on IT decisions made in corporate environments.

When a company reaches the size where they require full-time IT support staff, it’s already too late to begin planning for growth and scalability. Your only option is to play catch-up and deal with what you have.

In the computer world, things seem to move at incredible rates and growth happens exponentially. If your plan is built for tomorrow and not for 5 years from tomorrow, then you’ll need to make some important decisions, and move quickly.

The first task is to find out “how” people work, and evaluate how you could help them. What is the scope of software used by your employees? Does it go beyond the MS Office suite? Are there internal applications that *must* run on a desktop as opposed to a server? (think thin clients). What about mobile/remote connectivity? Do people have preferences (mac/pc/linux)?

Afterwards, it’s important to aim for standardization. I encourage multi-platform environments and interoperability between different OS’s and software, but for this to work successfully you must follow standards. Create checklists, requirements, procedures and policies to be followed and enforced at all levels across the entire company. This standardized approach can contain exceptions for specific employees, but these exceptions must also be standardized. Plan for the unplanned.

Here are some examples of things which should be standardized:

• hardware manufacturers
• email addresses and groups (per department, per location, address format, etc)
• operating systems
• directory/folder/file names
• access rights on shared folders/devices
• configurations for servers, workstations, laptops, other network equipment
• management and tracking of support requests
• hardware upgrade and rotation schedule
• virtualization procedures and deployments

Most importantly, don’t allow yourself or your company to be “locked-in” by specific vendors. Microsoft has done this by phasing-out support for old software and creating software necessitating newer hardware. Fortunately there are workarounds such as Volume Licensing, but unless you’re willing to take this leap (which will actually save money), as opposed to purchasing retail/oem MS software, then you’ll have fallen in the trap of vendor lock-in. I would recommend Open software to avoid any type of software vendor lock-in, but this is unfeasible if you’re already knee-deep in it.

What if you’re already locked-in and don’t have any standardized approach?

I know I said it’s too late, but in reality it’s not. If you have a reasonable IT budget, you can start over. You can create a new strategy for the future, one which plans for growth with some of the features listed above. You can also hire more staff to help implement and deploy this strategy. Ultimately it all comes down to how much you care about your IT infrastructure. Nowadays most companies rely solely on their computers and servers to get their job done. Email plays such an important role in daily communications.

If you’re in a position which allows you to make decisions that will greatly affect the future of your company’s IT infrastructure, it’s very important to take your time, evaluate your options, think outside the box, plan for growth, efficiency, increased productivity and ultimately savings.

In conclusion, I don’t think small startup companies should spend thousands of dollars implementing scalable solutions, but they should definitely spend some time planning for that day. When comes time to scale, they’ll know exactly how to proceed and it won’t be too late.