No one said working in IT is easy. In fact, many IT support agents will tell you the opposite. IT teams face several operational challenges, from cybersecurity to skills to scaling, that can make their work more difficult.
An effective, efficient IT team is vital for a business’s success and productivity. However, with the growing complexity of IT infrastructure, it can be challenging to adapt to rapid technological changes while still ensuring efficiency.
With that in mind, let’s look at some common IT operational challenges and how organizations can tackle them.
Top IT Operational Challenges Facing Modern Businesses
While IT teams face no shortage of challenges, some are more common and severe than others. These are some of the top operational challenges IT teams typically face:
1. Challenges in Scaling IT Infrastructure
When organizations grow, their IT infrastructure must grow with them. Otherwise, they won’t be able to support their expanded business and workforce. Scaling IT infrastructure can be challenging, especially if IT teams have limited resources.
IT departments need scalable solutions and platforms that can maintain high-performance quality as they expand and can keep up with the increased demand. Some systems may be outdated and difficult to upgrade or scale, adding further complications.
As such, it’s key to find a platform that can easily scale to keep up with a company’s growth, such as hosted solutions that don’t require additional hardware.
2. Inadequate Cybersecurity and Recovery Plans
Cybersecurity is one of an IT team’s most important responsibilities. However, insufficient security measures and disaster recovery plans can create a serious risk for an organization.
Poor security can result in data breaches, downtime, significant damages, and a loss of customer trust, not to mention penalties for failing to meet IT compliance regulations. After the initial attack, if a company doesn’t have a disaster recovery plan, the damages could be irreparable and cost even more time and money as IT teams struggle to repair what they can.
Organizations must invest in robust security protocols and disaster recovery strategies to ensure business continuity. Preparing for the worst is the best way to prevent attacks and keep damage to a minimum.
3. IT Skill Shortages
Skilled IT professionals are in high demand and low supply. Although they are vital for the health of any company, IT work can be challenging and often unrewarding, so organizations often struggle to hire and retain top talent.
As such, businesses must focus on developing and retaining skilled employees, rather than assuming they can always hire new ones. Development includes training, career development, performance management, and recognizing IT agents for their successes, thus encouraging growth.
At the same time, a healthy, positive, and respectful work environment that makes employees feel appreciated and rewarded will improve retention. Employees who feel valued and motivated are more likely to stick around, so your business won’t be at a loss for skilled IT agents.
4. Managing a Distributed Infrastructure
The days when an IT agent could walk over to an employee’s desk and fix their computer are long gone. Instead, employees and devices are spread out across multiple locations, whether they’re working remotely or a business has globally distributed offices. While organizations can benefit from this, it can create new challenges for IT teams.
It can be tricky to manage IT systems spread across multiple locations and cloud environments. Distributed infrastructures can make it difficult to ensure reliability and security for each location if you don’t have the right tools.
Fortunately, remote access, remote support, and remote desktop management solutions can enable IT teams to overcome these challenges. Splashtop’s solutions, for instance, empower users to access their work devices from anywhere, provide remote support, and manage multiple remote endpoints from a single dashboard, making it easy to manage distributed systems, workforces, and infrastructure.
5. Managing IT Costs Without Sacrificing Performance
IT teams don’t have unlimited budgets (as much as they wish they did). As such, balancing the need for high performance and the latest technology with budget constraints can be a challenge for many IT departments.
Finding cost-effective solutions that enable IT teams to carry out their tasks is often necessary, but “cost-effective” doesn’t always mean “efficient.” IT departments with limited budgets must consider their purchases carefully to ensure they’re getting the tools they need without going over budget.
There are many cost-effective options IT teams can look into. First, running cost-benefit analyses is helpful for identifying where they’re getting the most value and what investments are a drain on their budgets. IT asset management can also help track and optimize the usage of existing assets to ensure they’re maximizing the usage and lifespan of their equipment.
Additionally, hosted services are cost-effective solutions that can reduce hardware expenses while increasing scalability, making them a cost-effective investment with a high ROI.
6. Security and Compliance
Cybersecurity is vital for any business, so it’s one of IT’s most critical responsibilities. Organizations need to protect sensitive data and maintain compliance with industry regulations, such as GDPR, CCPA, HIPAA, or FERPA. Failing to do so can result in fines, reputational damage, downtime, and significant damage to the company.
This is why it’s vital to invest in secure solutions that comply with any relevant security standards, monitor for security vulnerabilities, and keep systems safe and up-to-date. Rolling out security updates and patches immediately can help close zero-day vulnerabilities and other weaknesses, but IT teams should also run vulnerability tests to find potential flaws before hackers or other bad actors do.
This is also why employees should be trained on security best practices, including how to prevent phishing and password security. Companies should ensure they’re following cybersecurity best practices, such as using multi-factor authentication, zero trust security, and role-based access control.
7. Resistance to IT Change
Sometimes the biggest challenge is just adapting to change. Employees are often hesitant to embrace new technology, whether due to a general resistance to change or a lack of proper training.
Companies need to effectively communicate the purpose of any IT or technological changes, explain its benefits, and train teams and employees on how to use the new technology. Communication, training, and strong leadership can help ensure a smooth transition.
Additionally, it helps to have a plan for transitioning to the new technology, so employees have time to adapt rather than having a sudden change dropped on them.
Strategies to Overcome IT Operational Challenges
While there are many IT operational challenges out there, none of them are insurmountable. Each operational challenge can be overcome with just a little bit of planning, preparation, and investment.
Common strategies include:
Embrace automation: Automation tools are among the most effective ways to streamline IT operations and improve efficiency. These eliminate time-consuming manual tasks, reduce downtime, and give IT agents more time to focus on pressing matters.
Choose the right solution: The solutions you choose will significantly impact your IT teams’ efficiency and effectiveness. You’ll need a feature-rich, scalable, and cost-effective solution that meets your business needs and security requirements to support your IT agents best.
Invest in your employees: One of the best investments you can make is in your employees. Providing training and development opportunities not only keeps your IT team’s skills fresh but also improves employee satisfaction and growth.
Use IT monitoring tools: IT environments can be large and complex, so IT monitoring tools can be a godsend. These tools help IT departments manage their environment and spot any potential issues in real time, so agents can troubleshoot and resolve them before they become a problem.
Use your resources: A tool or software can’t do an IT team any good if no one uses it. IT agents should understand the resources at their disposal and know how to efficiently use them to streamline processes, make informed decisions, and provide the high level of service they strive for. Make sure to optimize your resources to make the most of your investments and improve efficiency.
Don’t neglect security: Cybersecurity is not optional. You’ll want a comprehensive security strategy, including implementing security controls, monitoring your IT environment, and an incident response plan; the damages that can be caused by not having proper security significantly outweigh the investment.
Get Started With Splashtop to Streamline Your IT Operations
When you’re looking for a powerful tool for streamlining and managing IT operations, Splashtop has everything you need.
Splashtop Enterprise helps organizations overcome IT operational challenges by enabling remote IT support, system monitoring, and secure access from a scalable, user-friendly platform. IT agents can connect to remote devices from anywhere, enabling them to provide direct support and troubleshooting no matter where they’re working.
IT departments can benefit from Splashtop Enterprise’s remote support features, system monitoring, security (including compliance with ISO/IEC 27001, SOC 2, GDPR, and more), and scalability. These help simplify IT management, enable smooth remote operations for IT teams, and increase efficiency across an organization.
Splashtop AEM (Autonomous Endpoint Management) also makes it easy to streamline IT operations and automate routine tasks. Splashtop AEM provides oversight and management of multiple endpoints from a single dashboard, so IT teams can enforce security policies, monitor for threats, and push fixes and updates out automatically.
Splashtop AEM enables you to:
Automate updates and patches across endpoints
Customize and enforce security policies throughout your network.
Receive real-time security alerts and smart fixes.
Monitor endpoints from a centralized dashboard.
Receive detailed reports on system, hardware, and software inventory.
Ready to experience Splashtop for yourself? Get started today with a free trial:
