With the ball getting ready to drop in New York City, it becomes that time of year where we need to pull out the resolutions from 12 months ago and see how well we did. Have we lost those 15 pounds, had our last cigarette or started that novel? Some of us have and others have not. However, by examining the year that was and seeing where our preset goals fall can go a long way to toward helping future action.
This situation is completely applicable to the business world as well. The first of the year is when many companies lay out budget, hiring and productivity goals for the year, as well as evaluate the past ones.
A recent PCMag article from Samara Lynn, examined some of the challenges that IT departments had to face in the last year. The economy itself was a challenge for everyone and businesses were no different.
There were also a handful of tech specific challenges. Mobile devices became a must-have business tool, which led to an evolving remote workforce. Along with this were growing network security concerns. Hurricane Sandy highlighted disaster recovery plans and booming technologies like cloud computing moved up many priority lists.
"The good thing about challenges is that they can lead to preparedness and action," wrote Lynn. "By focusing on the technology trends and major issues many businesses faced in 2012, you can not only ward off or ease any of the potential technology pitfalls in the coming year, but you can also use new trends and tech to help you work smarter."
Times of reflection are good for businesses to make solid decisions. An IT consulting firm can help any company audit the year that was and plan out the future.
