Fall is officially here, and for a lot of Omaha-area businesses, that means the pace is picking up.
Projects that need to wrap before year-end are moving. Budgets are being built. Teams are trying to use the PTO they still have on the books. Holidays are coming. And somewhere in the middle of all of that, everyone still needs their technology to work.
This is usually when the little IT problems that have been hanging around start becoming much more annoying.
The laptop that’s been slow for months. The Wi-Fi issue everyone works around. The former employee whose account never quite got cleaned up.
None of those necessarily require a massive IT project. But fall is a good time to get them handled before November and December make everyone’s calendars even harder to work around.
Make Sure Your Backups Can Actually Restore
Seeing a successful backup notification is reassuring. It’s also only half the story.
A backup matters when you can actually get the data back.
That means occasionally performing a real restore and confirming that the data is complete, current, and usable. Backup jobs can fail quietly because of storage issues, configuration changes, disconnected systems, or any number of other problems.
A useful question for your team is simple:
If one of our critical systems went down tomorrow, how long would it take us to get working again — and how much data could we lose?
If nobody knows, that’s worth figuring out.
Get Your Updates Out of the Way
Nobody wants to hear “we need to reboot everything” in the middle of a deadline.
Software, operating systems, firewalls, switches, and other technology all need regular security and stability updates. Putting those updates off indefinitely can leave known vulnerabilities open and can eventually create compatibility problems.
If systems have fallen behind, fall is a good opportunity to get them current before holiday schedules and year-end deadlines make maintenance windows harder to find.
Ideally, much of this should already be happening quietly through proactive monitoring rather than becoming something your team has to remember.
Pay Attention to the Things Everyone Has Learned to Live With
Every office has them.
The conference room where video calls are always a little choppy. The corner with questionable Wi-Fi. The computer that takes forever to start. The application everyone knows they have to close and reopen twice.
People get surprisingly good at working around technology problems.
The problem is that those workarounds still cost time.
Take a look at the recurring complaints your team has stopped reporting. Slow file access, unreliable Wi-Fi, aging equipment, Microsoft 365 performance issues, and network bottlenecks may not bring the business to a halt, but they can make an already busy season harder than it needs to be.
Clean Up Who Has Access to What
Fall is also a good time for some account housekeeping.
Think about everyone who has joined, left, changed roles, worked temporarily, or been given access to something during the past year.
Do they still need everything they can currently access?
Former employees and vendors shouldn’t have active accounts hanging around. Employees who have changed roles may have permissions they no longer need. Shared passwords should be addressed, and multi-factor authentication should be enabled on important systems — particularly email and financial applications.
If you’ve got a compliance review, cyber insurance renewal, or year-end audit coming up, you’ll be especially glad you handled this before someone starts asking questions.
Take a Look at Aging Equipment
You don’t need to replace a laptop because it had one bad Tuesday.
But if someone has been fighting the same machine for six months, that’s a different conversation.
Look for computers with failing batteries, full drives, outdated operating systems, recurring hardware problems, or performance issues that are affecting someone’s ability to work.
The same applies to network equipment and other critical hardware.
Planned replacements are much easier to deal with than emergency replacements — particularly when half the office is taking vacation around Thanksgiving or Christmas.
Look at What Your IT Team Is Actually Doing for You
This is also a useful time to look beyond individual technology problems and ask a bigger question:
Are we mostly fixing things after they break, or are we preventing problems in the first place?
Good IT support should include both.
Your team needs someone to call when something goes wrong. But there should also be work happening that users rarely see: monitoring systems, maintaining equipment, reviewing security, planning replacements, tracking technology needs, and helping leadership understand what’s coming next.
That’s where a strong vCIO relationship can be valuable.
A vCIO isn’t just there to recommend new technology. They should help you understand what you have, what needs attention, what’s coming down the road, and where technology fits into the company’s larger plans and budget.
Don’t Wait for January to Fix Everything
There’s a tendency to treat January as the great reset.
New budget. New projects. New plans. We’ll deal with it then.
But if something is already slowing people down in September, carrying it for another three months doesn’t make much sense.
Fall is a good time to identify the handful of technology issues that would make the biggest difference to your team and get those handled before the end-of-year rush really sets in.
You don’t need to overhaul everything.
You just don’t want the problem everyone knew about in September to become the emergency everyone is dealing with in December.
Frequently Asked Questions
What should businesses review this fall?
Start with the basics: backups, software and security updates, network performance, user access, aging equipment, and recurring technology problems employees have learned to work around. You should also review any technology projects or replacements that need to happen before year-end.
How often should backups be tested?
That depends on your recovery requirements, risk, and how frequently your data changes. The important distinction is that a successful backup job doesn’t automatically mean your data can be successfully restored. Actual recovery testing should be part of your backup strategy.
What is proactive IT monitoring?
Proactive monitoring watches devices, servers, networks, and other systems for potential problems so they can often be addressed before they cause a larger disruption. It’s one part of IT support; your provider should still be there when employees need help with an immediate problem.
Why should businesses review user access?
People join companies, leave companies, change positions, work on temporary projects, and receive access to new systems throughout the year. Periodic reviews help make sure people only have access to what they currently need and that old accounts aren’t left active unnecessarily.
How do I know if aging technology needs to be replaced?
One problem doesn’t necessarily mean a device needs to go. Look for patterns: repeated repairs, poor performance, inability to run current software, unsupported operating systems, failing hardware, or problems that consistently interrupt someone’s work.
What does a vCIO do?
A virtual Chief Information Officer helps connect technology decisions with the larger needs of the business. That can include technology planning, budgeting, lifecycle management, security priorities, and helping leadership decide what should happen now versus what can wait.
Ready to Head Into Year-End With Fewer IT Surprises?
If there are technology problems your team has been working around all year, now is a good time to deal with them.