Five Reasons Why Not Keeping Your Software Up to Date Can be a Danger to Your Business
I think you will agree that all things wear out. And you know that for your business to operate at its best, your premises, equipment, vehicles, materials and supplies must all be well maintained and periodically replaced. Common business sense right? Of course.
Well the same is true of your business computer hardware and your software. We understand easily enough that hardware wears out but software wearing out can be harder to grasp. It is just electronic bits and bytes right, how could it wear out? Well you are right it does not really, but it does get old and there is danger in that.
The fact is that your business software is essentially the brain of your business. It is also the place where most of your most valuable business information is stored. It really must be kept up to date.
These are other things to consider, you’ve probably noticed that business technology has changed dramatically over the last decade. Trends like the dramatic growth of cybercrime, the huge move to business online, and the need for better faster useful reporting, as well as the need for more efficient processes, and new higher level employees and customer satisfaction are present today. These all go to the fact that your software must be up to date.
If your business software is old (and in technology time that could be 2 years old) the dangers you face are:
- It is most likely that your hardware and the operating systems used to run it are old, this leaves your business open, vulnerable to cybercrime hackers, data loss, and just plain slow operations.
- Your employees are not getting the benefits of the new features and improved functionality, benefits your competitors already have, as a result your business could be falling behind.
- Your core business accounting system will not be compatible with new ecommerce, reporting platforms and other add-on products. Upgrades to better solutions are just not possible.
- Holding off on upgrades, having to do two or more upgrades all at once pushes a larger cost into one period, doing regular upgrades spreads the services cost out over time.
- Many accounting and technical auditing best practices look for software that is current and supported by the publisher.
The plain simple conclusion is that if your software is out of date, and no longer supported by the publisher, your business does suffer. So let us help you address this today. Contact your Net at Work Account Manager to discuss your options.
