Businesses can grow exceptionally fast. One minute you’re sitting alone in your lounge room plugging away on your laptop, and the next you’re setting up passwords for the 5th new employee to join your team in 6 months.
Expansion is incredibly rewarding, but it can also be a stressful time where tedious tasks – such as documenting all of the IT you’ve been accumulating – seem to fall by the wayside.
Before you know it, your business is the proud owner of 10 new desktop computers, 15 keyboards, 6 laptops, 8 tablets, 2 printers, a router and a server (not to mention all the software you’ve paid for). And that’s just what you remember buying!
In addition, you know your business relies heavily on all of these assets. You hope (fingers crossed) that it just works and that, as a system, it’s going to continue delivering what you need to ensure your business runs smoothly.
But crossing your fingers and hoping for the best is a dangerous game. It’s true that IT exists to help you “get the job done” – but without a proper understanding of how that IT works in unison to support your business goals, you may end up facing a severe problem that rocks the core of your entire operation.
Rather than winding up in this predicament, an IT audit can be an invaluable exercise to help you get a handle on your IT environment.
What is an IT audit?
An IT audit is the starting point of every effective IT management system.
When Empreus IT conducts an IT audit, we:
- Document your ICT assets (including software and hardware)
- Examine your IT environment and how it is working to support your business goals
- Discuss any issues you may be having
- Test your environment for security and data integrity
- Provide recommendations for eliminating issues and controlling risks
Once we understand your environment, we’re also better equipped to respond to your needs in the future.
We recommend a “health check” every 6 months following your IT audit, to ensure that everything is still working as it should be. And if you prefer a more proactive approach, you may even wish to start a Managed Services arrangement.
Can an IT audit help with insurance?
An IT site audit is the basis (or bare minimum) for understanding what you have in terms of ICT assets.
If the unthinkable were to happen – such as someone broke into your office, or there was a fire – this list would be a great starting point, but would likely not be enough information for a contents insurance claim.
In this case, you need an itemised list complete with serial numbers and product numbers. If you require this in addition to an IT audit, please don’t hesitate to ask us for a quote.
To arrange an IT audit for your business, please call Empreus IT Support on (02) 6189 1322 or contact us today.
