Fifosys Initial Assessment: Maximise Your Potential with an IT Audit

Working with a managed service provider is a great way to get the most out of your IT setup. However, too many service providers focus on simplistic, off-the-shelf, one-size-fits-all solutions without considering individual organisations and their specific circumstances.

At Fifosys, we prefer to work with small and medium enterprises on a much closer level, tailoring our services to your needs. One way we do this is through an initial assessment or audit. In this post, we explain the benefits of this process and highlight how it can help you maximise your potential.

The Need for an IT Audit

Regardless of a business's size, you can't underestimate the importance of IT systems, networks, and infrastructure anymore. Organisations are typically more heavily reliant on data than in the past, and working hours are also often less clearly defined, with more people working flexibly and remotely.

Business continuity is a top priority, and any downtime can be extremely costly. At the same time, however, threats like social engineering and cyber attacks are rising. For these reasons, you need to ensure you have the right security strategy in place and are getting the most from your IT strategy.

Many organisations work with managed service providers (MSPs) who only intervene in times of crisis or when systems fail. These MSPs often adopt a simplistic approach, replacing like-for-like. Here at Fifosys, we prefer to adopt a much more holistic, long-term strategy, helping you take your business to the next level.

To do this, we conduct an IT audit, allowing us to learn about your current situation and what you would like to change. The audit also allows us to identify any areas of concern and provide recommendations for actions you can take.

Now, Next and Beyond

Another major benefit of this initial assessment is the ability to get a sense of where your business currently stands, where you expect to be in the next few years, and what your long-term aims and objectives are, which then allows us to work with you on a strategy that considers the "now, next and beyond".

A good example of this can be seen in our work with The Santon Group, one of the largest private developers in the UK. One of the big challenges the organisation faced was relocating its offices and updating its IT infrastructure while simultaneously keeping business downtime to the absolute minimum.

We wanted to get to know the business and understand its long-term goals. Future expansion was a major focus, so we worked with the organisation to create a new centralised IT infrastructure while ensuring it could be expanded easily without requiring another complete re-design.

Our eventual solution delivered on this while providing the company with flexibility, cost-savings and the ability to recover quickly and minimise downtime, even during a major data disaster.

On-Going Partnerships

Understanding that an audit can serve as the basis for an ongoing partnership is essential. We continue to work with many of our clients over the longer term, delivering on their instructions and helping them identify areas for improvement or address areas of high risk.

For instance, we worked with the London Claremont Clinic, as they wanted to move towards a fully managed IT infrastructure. We recommended a cloud-based solution, assisted them with implementing it, and continued to work with them, providing continuous service desk support and stepping in when any issues arose.

With an ongoing working relationship of this kind, the initial auditing process plays a valuable role in bringing us closer to the businesses we work with and helping us to understand their long-term needs, allowing us to strategically align our services to your goals to help you maximise your potential.

The Last Word

At Fifosys, we believe in the power of genuine collaboration and the importance of strategic alignment. We are keen to work with your organisation to learn about your current situation and prospects so we can fully tailor our services and help you get the most out of your IT strategy.

The best way to achieve this is through an initial audit, during which we can identify strengths, weaknesses, areas of risk, and areas of potential and then make recommendations based on your specific circumstances and needs.