Sandton, October, 25, 2021 - A comprehensive IT Audit will determine your exact IT requirements by highlighting what is missing or unnecessary and at risk. In the process, your company will gain insight into exactly how much money it can save by implementing the right solution. Don’t let the thought of conducting an IT Audit make you apprehensive. This audit is really a Business Technology Review aimed at helping you to save costs and is not meant to penalise you or your company in any way.

Poor IT infrastructure can result in severe negative impacts on your company, including its bottom line. While most businesses consider the initial upfront costs of an IT setup, they fail to consider the ongoing maintenance and support needed. Westech offers well-priced monthly IT maintenance contracts known as IT Service Level Agreements (SLA) to meet your IT needs.

Hidden IT Factors That Cost Your Business Money
Upfront IT costs will include obvious things such as the hardware, software and licensing, but less obviously, issues such as outdated software may have an impact on some programmes resulting in them no longer working on the latest Operating System (OS). Although it may be a relatively simple issue to resolve, it involves employee downtime, and this downtime, multiplied by the number of employees in your company, may soon add up to costs that could have easily been avoided.

Another example is the ripple effect that an IT outage can have on a company – especially if backups fail due to outdated data recovery activities. In instances such as these, it is better to be proactive rather than reactive.

Importance of Regular IT Audits
Being proactive means conducting regular IT Audits to ascertain your company’s monthly IT spending details and reducing complexities by standardising software and company IT configurations. It is also vital to evaluate your IT security to determine how effectively your company is protected against viruses, hackers and other IT threats.

A professional technical and technology review of your company’s IT environment covers many areas. The following summarises the most important Key Performance Areas that should be examined to uncover the full extent of your company’s IT strengths and weaknesses.

• Active Directory
• Applications
• Backups
• Email
• Infrastructure
• Licensing
• Network
• Ransomware
• Security
• Servers
• Workstations

Once an IT Audit has been conducted, it is suggested that regular and practical IT training for employees be conducted.

Why You Should Consider Outsourcing Your IT Services
If your company does not have a large or dedicated IT department, there are reliable IT companies that can be cost-effectively outsourced, such as Westech in Johannesburg, South Africa, that will provide pivotal IT functions such as;

• IT Technical Support
• IT Data Backup and Recovery
• IT Security
• IT Storage through offsite servers

An experienced outsourced IT service provider is an efficient way for companies to access reliable IT infrastructure and has many benefits.

Westech, one of the preferred IT companies in South Africa, can be contacted to conduct an IT Audit to help determine your company’s current and required IT status. Furthermore, as one of the best IT companies in Johannesburg, Westech offers well-priced monthly IT maintenance contracts known as IT Service Level Agreements (SLA) to meet your needs.

Contact Westech to conduct a full background check on your IT infrastructure, hardware, and software to ensure the best IT support specific to your business. Once the audit is complete, Westech will provide you with a detailed report which will enable you to improve your company’s overall IT strategy.

The traditional business environment is no more as consumer behaviour has shifted since the start of the pandemic. In addition, the challenges of working from home have increased the pace of digital transformation resulting in a disruption to technology and existing IT business strategies as the rate of business innovation rapidly increases.

Savvy business owners have already recognised that their IT departments are not an island on their own. Operational processes, organisational structures, and value chains are directly affected by outdated IT strategies, all of which can negatively impact company revenue. New technologies are needed to increase customer support, implement automation and clean up redundant or conflicting systems.

Most company executives have a basic understanding of the Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), digital transformation and the like. Still, they are confused about how these different IT business models can be applied to their businesses. It helps to understand that these digital offerings are purely an extension to existing services, similar to an app, that enhance their ability to engage with their clients and meet their rapidly changing requirements.

New digital technologies need to create value for the consumer in terms of making their life easier. Whether this involves enabling them to access your business quickly, obtain information efficiently or improve your delivery turnaround times to them, your company’s objective should be to monetise your IT business model.

Strong Leadership Required To Frame Conversations Around Digital Transformation
To fully integrate these new technologies, your IT business model needs to be flexible, efficient and cost-effective to deliver significant value to all areas of your business, as well as to your clients. However, one significant change required and frequently overlooked is the cultural change needed within each company to walk away from outdated processes. This dynamic requires strong leadership skills to steer the business through the initial bumps and curves in the road ahead before a digital transformation can be successful.

Business executives need to consider the following elements when implementing a thorough digital transformation strategy:

• Customer experience
• Operational processes and flexibility
• Company culture
• Technology integration

While leadership may have the know-how when it comes to customers, operations, and their staff culture, integrating the correct technology will support cost-saving initiatives and allow IT to become the primary driver of business innovation.

The Value of an Experienced IT Company During Digital Transformation
Engaging the services of a professional and experienced IT company will assist your to build new capabilities tailored to your exact requirements, rather than offering you a general “one-size-fits-all” solution. It will also allow the employees to concentrate on the business activities at hand while leadership manages the essential cultural aspects of the company. This will, at large, relate to possible changes in job titles, departments and business processes, which may cause people to fear that their jobs are at risk and result in demotivation and resistance.

Westech, a professional IT support and services partner in South Africa, is highly experienced at servicing all major business sectors and assists companies with their digital transformation drives. Visit their website for further information.

Westech has supported the Broad-Based Black Economic Empowerment transformation of South Africa’s economy since 2012. Its journey, like most companies, has been an educational one and continues as it progresses in building a company that is an asset to South Africa while embracing a philosophy of growth, education and expansion in the ICT space.

Roy Westfehling, CEO of Westech, believes that there is not only a need to upskill and empower all South Africans but that there should be an excessive emphasis on improving service levels across all sectors of the economy. Westfehling says, “It’s no simple task. However, if we can all make improvements from within our individual organisations as well as expand and maintain a high level of service delivery, it could have a significant impact on service levels in general.”

Since its inception, Westech has always been a service-driven company. Improved service levels combined with B-BBEE are a winning formula for the company – not only from a growth perspective but also from a client retention, sustainability and investor standpoint.

Westech has achieved its Level 2 B-BBEE compliance (view this here), which enables it to compete at a higher level in providing services and products that compete on international levels. “Being a Microsoft Partner in the Cloud Space, as well as being aligned with major hardware brands like Dell and HP certainly gives us a competitive advantage,” says Westfehling.

He also believes that technically upskilling previously disadvantaged people is not only a powerful way to improve diversity but also provides employees with a pathway to positions in higher-paying jobs. Westech is invested in transforming the career of their employees through regular training, which benefits not only their staff but also their clients.

The company’s knowledgeable technical team offers professional advice, technical assistance with complex projects and excellent after-sales service. Westech’s clients are assured of the services of an expert IT company that provides lifetime value and actively reduces downtime, thereby saving them money.

Westech has provided a comprehensive range of reliable IT support and managed services to companies across South Africa since 1994. Clients have the choice of either on-site or off-site outsourced IT support contracts to suit their specific requirements.

Some of the IT services provided by Westech include;

• IT support
• IT outsourcing
• IT audits
• IT connectivity
• IT security
• IT networking
• IT Hardware
• IT Software

The company understands that, as a business grows, so too does its IT and connectivity needs. Westech is committed to providing scalable IT support solutions that make IT more straightforward for companies to incorporate into their service offerings.

To understand how your business can save money by implementing the right technology, contact Westech.

Digital Transformation (DX) is the process whereby digital technology is integrated into all business areas to change the operations in terms of delivering better value to clients. This is not only an operation change, but also a cultural change that requires companies to analyse and adapt their processes constantly.

During the course of a digital transformation, strong leadership and vision are required to change the way employees work, collaborate and execute processes. This inevitably opens up new opportunities for companies to increase their competitiveness when it comes to best serving their clients.

Undoubtedly, the COVID pandemic has accelerated the digital transformation process by a new intrinsic need to provide contactless services. Workers were forced to work remotely from home, and companies have had to find innovative ways to alleviate the pressure caused by a rise in new technological requirements. Transformation technologies currently include the Internet of Things (IoT), cloud computing and Wi-Fi 6.

Initial Drivers of the Digital Transformation Process

Pre-COVID, digital transformation drivers resulted from a need to physically move stock more quickly and effectively to various locations and counter any disruptions to business growth and operational efficiencies, albeit on a much smaller scale than during COVID.

Development of Agile Software

While there is now an abundance of online tools available, this has created a collaboration problem to ensure that all employees are on the same page and moving in one direction. Company executives have found themselves using the same digital transformation techniques for their staff that they used on their clients to ensure happy and productive employees, thus reducing staff turnover.

New Security Risks

As with any organisational change, digital transformation has presented IT departments with many data and network security challenges. Still, companies seem to be learning from their mistakes as an increased pace of data and network security upgrades are being implemented.

Planning and Targeting Digital Transformation Initiatives

Transformational initiatives will only succeed if carefully planned. While a transformation implies moving from one fixed state to another, digital transformation will need to result in a permanently agile state and not an inflexible one, as IT advancements established during COVID.

This will involve further IoT advances, new programming infrastructure, reimagined workflows, and possibly AI mechanisms that monitor and adapt to continuous changes. At the very least, the automation of routine tasks will need to be widely adopted to accommodate the demand for change.

However, the crux of digital transformation will be a balancing act – i.e. managing too much change happening too quickly or not fast enough. This can lead to the derailment of the entire process, as can poor leadership or employee engagement, cost-cutting drivers and substandard IT operations.

In instances such as these, it is best to approach an independent IT services provider that has experience with taking companies through this transformation process. Westech, an experienced IT service provider based in Gauteng, assists companies to future-proof their business by analysing their existing IT infrastructure and future requirements. They also advise on redundant equipment and cost-saving measures while prioritising and readying IT activities for migration.

Contact Westech to discuss a digital transformation strategy for your company.