After big data, artificial intelligence (AI) is creating all the buzz in today’s business world. Everyone is racing towards AI implementation one way or another. Some are utilizing AI to improve business processes. Other businesses leverage AI to deliver a better customer experience. Regardless of how AI is implemented, the use of artificial intelligence brings a lot of benefits to businesses and customers alike.
However, racing towards AI implementation isn’t always the right decision to make. There are countless cases of failed AI implementation among businesses – including large corporations – and in almost all of them, there is one identifiable culprit: a lack of information technology foundation. AI may be the way forward, but establishing a strong technology foundation is still a step that cannot be missed for several reasons.
It Starts with Efficient Workflows
Integrating IT solutions into business processes is complicated enough as it is. You have to think about how you can leverage business solutions to improve operations. Forcing the implementation of unsuitable business solutions will only result in fragmented processes, inefficient workflows, and even the IT solutions themselves becoming bottlenecks.
The best way to create a strong foundation for your business is by understanding what you need. Take a closer look at workflows and processes. Begin documenting tasks associated with those workflows. It doesn’t take long before you start noticing ways to improve the workflows, especially if you run an in-depth analysis of them.
Once you discover the optimization options, you can begin the process of setting business IT requirements. You already know what you want to improve across the business, which means identifying what business solutions are required is a more straightforward task to complete. The requirements are based on the efficient workflows that you want to achieve.
A Solid Ground
All business solutions require a robust infrastructure to be effective. In the case of Solution-as-a-Service (SaaS) options, you don’t have to think about setting up infrastructure. You sign up for an account, pay a fixed fee, and start utilizing the tools and features available. Integration is also easy, thanks to APIs and other resources provided by the SaaS providers.
That said, you still need to set up the on-premise infrastructure – client terminals, desktop computers, networks, and other components – appropriately for the business solutions to be valuable. Some solutions require on-premise hardware or servers that you manage yourself. These components add complexity to the equation.
That is where management tools like TOPdesk are beneficial. In the case of TOPdesk, you can use the platform to manage everything from support requests – from internal users as well as external – to the entire IT infrastructure just as easily. You even get a visualization of your infrastructure, as well as tools for managing configurations and troubleshooting issues.
Constant Monitoring
Maintenance is the next element of your IT foundation. Both the infrastructure and the business solutions you use need to be maintained for them to run smoothly. Problems with these elements will result in business disruptions, so it is easy to see how maintenance is crucial. Fortunately, you can rely on the same platform mentioned earlier to simplify maintenance.
TOPdesk includes a tool for constant monitoring. The dashboard of the platform can be configured to display the performance metrics of your entire IT ecosystem. With a few tweaks, you can view parameters that are the most important to you.
Performance reports are generated automatically. Once the platform collects enough data, you can switch to a predictive maintenance approach rather than relying on issues and warnings to keep the ecosystem healthy. As TOPdesk delivers more data, you can start analyzing trends and spotting potential problems before they occur.
Refinement Is Key
A reliable IT foundation is never built overnight. Ask any business on the market today about how they constructed their information system, and you will hear stories about a long and complicated process that involve trials and refinements. That last part – refinement – is the most crucial element of the process. Now that you have data flowing in from your ecosystem, you can begin the process of refining your IT foundation.
Changes may be needed to create a scalable and sustainable IT ecosystem. For example, you can choose to switch to a more capable cloud server with additional CPU cores when there are computing-intensive tasks to run. On the other hand, you can invest in cheaper storage servers for archives and file storage.
More importantly, you already have TOPdesk acting as the central control panel for your entire ecosystem. Thanks to the visualization tools and other features offered by the platform, you can manage the internal IT ecosystem as a service, treat users as clients, and refine the ecosystem more accurately.
A Continuous Process
That brings us to the last point to understand about setting up a strong IT foundation: it is a continuous process. While you can implement advanced business solutions and integrate AI into workflows at any point, maintaining a robust IT infrastructure is still essential for the future success of the business. The last thing you want is running into bottlenecks because your IT infrastructure cannot be scaled quickly enough.
It is a continuous process of setting up, monitoring, and refining solutions. For instance, you will have to improve your internal network if the size of the company doubles. The same wiring and network architecture are not going to sustain the operations of the business as effectively, now that there are more users in the ecosystem.
The same is true with business solutions. The tools you find adequate today may not be sufficient when you are handling more customers. Rather than limiting the growth of the business, what you need to do is make adjustments to the solutions you use or switch to different ones completely. Once again, these are parts of the continuous improvement process.
The rest is easy once you have the fundamentals covered. Automation, artificial intelligence, and even big data will no longer be buzzwords; they become tools that you can utilize to grow your business faster than ever.
Video – Artificial Intelligence
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