SOFTWARE UPGRADE: HOW TO MINIMIZE THE RISKS AND POTENTIAL BUSINESS DISRUPTION

After two years of helping many of our customers resolve software upgrade and change-related business disruptions, we have come up with three main principles that will help your business maintain a smooth-operating technology infrastructure at all times:

Every employee should understand the work processes and live production environment in which they operate. This ensures that changes, however frequent, will happen in a predictable manner.
User acceptance testing is a vital step before any upgrade goes live. To reduce the risks of business disruption and end-user frustration, this process should be managed, documented, communicated, and repeatable.
Software upgrades should only be approved when Step 2 is complete.

We have often been asked to help businesses recover from the disruption caused by what seemed like a harmless internal software event – an update or an upgrade: for example, the launch of an e-commerce site or a new expense system, or an end user being granted their random request for the latest version of an off-the-shelf software application.

During and after such upgrades, different factors can cause business disruption and end-user problems. These include application incompatibility, hardware incompatibility, and a lack of transparency and communication between everybody impacted by the change.

Random incremental IT investments run the risk of causing bottlenecks that prove to be very expensive in the long term.

Here are some ways to avoid the problems:

For end users, it helps to have an understanding of the interdependencies of work processes and the underlying technology.
For management, careful and proactive planning is required. To mitigate risks associated with a software upgrade, organizational processes are necessary for procurement, scheduling, end-user communications, and deployment.
For senior management, can you say that all your employees are currently aware of the departmental and company goals? Is there an overall IT strategy that feeds into those goals? Inflexible and expensive legacy systems that hold islands of information are often the unplanned outcome of a software system upgrade carried out without considering the goals of the business unit and the company’s goals.

Depending on your in-house capabilities, it can be more efficient to work with an experienced software consultant. They can streamline IT operations, anticipate problems before they arise, help define in-house processes, point out potential pitfalls, and negotiate favourable terms when it comes to new software acquisition. Contact us today if you wish to discuss your managed services needs with our consultants who are experts in integrating new software systems while maintaining productivity.

Written by Sarah O’Connell

To speak to a consultant, call us on 01-4507846 or email us at info@mcscomputers.ie