3 Ways Professional IT Services Will Jump-Start Your Reopening

By Justin Piotroski

Justin Piotroski

Few enterprise IT leaders could have planned for the sudden, unexpected evacuation of their workplaces. The events of the last few months have challenged IT departments to pivot rapidly and turn up remote work solutions at a speed and scale never seen before. As states reopen their economies, IT leaders are now challenged to prepare their workplaces for a re-introduction of their employees. One thing’s for sure: no matter what business you’re in, it won’t be business as usual.

Don’t expect to reopen your offices as fast as you shut them down. Power outages, device failures and many other issues occur after a sudden stop in business operations. What’s more, you may have to rethink your office plan to incorporate physical distancing. Either way, a lot of work needs to happen before your office is operational again.

That’s where a team of professional network specialists, headed up by an IT consultant, can help. A dedicated professional services team can take on those extra IT burdens so you can focus on getting your facilities up and running. Here are some things a professional services team can do for you.

Implement repairs and upgrades. Need new Ethernet cables? If you’re migrating applications to the cloud, older cables can’t support the workloads.

Do you have back-ups of all your data, server, router and switch configurations that can be used to restore service? How long ago were they completed? Have they changed since then?

Professional network services teams include engineers who can roll up their sleeves, help document what’s in place today, recommend what you’ll need in the future, and then implement your installation. So you can relieve your team of the labor-intensive work of site configuration, equipment installation and rollouts—including wiring and CPE—and let them focus on higher-value tasks.

Audit your current assets. Without employees onsite, you have an opportunity to move freely throughout your facility and inventory, document and tag all your technology items with inventory control labels—such as printers, keyboards, docking stations, monitors, routers, switches and servers. This is especially useful if your organization has recently acquired another company.

In addition to hardware, now is also a great time to do a network, security and compliance audit to help you plan a strategy to match your application roadmap, as well as deal with any bandwidth bottlenecks that could hold your strategy back.

A network professional services team can do the legwork and present you with a complete audit that reviews your current infrastructure and evaluates it against both current needs and long-term business objectives.

Recalibrate your IT road map. Most IT leaders would agree that their original 2020 technology roadmap has been turned upside down. In the post-pandemic reality, what does your business need now? Do you need to shore up compliance? Bolster your network security? Or have the last few months accelerated your cloud migration strategy?

Financially, your business has likely taken a hit—leaving your CFO looking for ways to rein in spending. As you’re re-thinking your IT roadmap, now’s the time to make a case for higher-efficiency, lower-OPEX network services. For example, SD-WAN can replace costly POTS lines and MPLS architecture with a highly agile, dynamic platform that maximizes bandwidth to help control expenses.

Outsourcing your network operations is an effective way of onboarding new technology and driving network transformation—without the high CAPEX expenses of a network rip-and-replace. An experienced, qualified consultant can look at your business objectives and gather business requirements. By acting as a single point of management, the consultant helps you move projects on your IT roadmap ahead faster, while allowing you to keep your headcount down and focus your internal teams on the core business.

Welcome your employees back to an office that works. From requirements gathering, to cloud-optimized network and communications solutions, to implementation and ongoing management, Professional Services from Windstream Enterprise can help you achieve a network that delivers against your business strategy. Our team of diverse experts can help deliver complete solutions designed to support your digital roadmap, achieve business objectives and fuel competitive advantage. Our team can help:

To learn more about how Professional Services from Windstream Enterprise can advance your vision, visit our Solutions page or contact our team.

Justin Piotroski leads the network consulting and field implementation teams at Windstream Enterprise. Having served in technology consulting organizations over the last 13 years, Justin has had wide exposure to hundreds of companies and their IT strategies.