3 things employers of 25+ employees can do to optimize their IT network:

1. Understand what you have.

Perform an assessment and document your existing network infrastructure and the ways it is (or is not) supporting your business. A company of 25 employees would want to ensure that their network is built for growth. Many entry-level software caps out at 25-30 users, adding an extra employee may jeopardize the legality of using that program. A properly performed assessment will provide insight into the immediate, short and long term IT needs of your business and should include things such as:

a) Business requirements and collaboration needs
b) Equipment age and compatibility
c) Software age, compatibility and legality
d) Internet Connectivity
e) Data and application access
f) Remote access
g) Network and Cyber Security
h) Data backup
i) Disaster recovery
j) Cloud services

Understanding what you have is the first step to identifying areas of strength and weakness. Once these things are identified, a clear plan forward can then be created and areas that require improvement can be scheduled for repair or upgrade as required.

2. Fill the gaps

From the assessment, create a list of deficiencies in the infrastructure then prioritize, budget and schedule upgrades or corrections to fill the gaps. Some upgrades can have a large capital cost associated to them like server replacement or migrating data from a local network to a cloud hosted one. Companies with 25 employees may want to consider phasing out larger network upgrades to allow capital for other lines of business. Also, companies of this size should identify if they plan on growing their employee base in which case it might make sense to move forward sooner on a cloud project limiting the labour cost of migrating data of more employees later on.

3. Plan for the future

This really applies to any size company but you can plan for the future by selecting an IT vendor that will work with you to perform short, medium, and long term planning. Schedule monthly or quarterly planning meetings focused on identifying new technologies to integrate into your IT infrastructure to support the policies, procedures and change management required by your business.