London IT support firm, Nutbourne, has just launched a new benchmarking service. Developed to help companies optimise their IT infrastructure. The new service combines the very best of IT and business practise into a simple and straightforward roadmap. Helping to mitigate risk, boosts efficiency and saves money. Speaking about the new service, Nutbourne Technical Director Patrick Burgess said:
“It’s very easy for companies to get bogged down in a single element of IT and lose sight of the bigger picture. Inevitably, when companies lose sight of the overall picture, then they lose sight of things like usability and the quality of their systems, as a whole.
“Our benchmarking service is designed to put a stop to that. By giving companies a clear plan and path toward quality and cost-effective IT. The process itself is iterative, and so doesn’t focus on a single aspect of IT within the company. That means the overall standard of IT is raised across the board, incrementally, and without leaving any aspect lagging behind.”
Patrick adds that the service is both holistic and exhaustive. Covering 175 Benchmark controls, made up of the leading standards across the industry. It takes into account things like Cyber Essentials, ISO27001 and a number of vendor best practises that cover the entire business spectrum.
How and why Nutbourne carries out initial benchmarks
As part of its IT support service, London-based Nutbourne carries out an initial Benchmark. This is to determine which areas provide the greatest risk to the business. It evaluates the current standards against relevant benchmarks, and from there provides a line in the sand from which to move forward.
“The whole point is to understand where a company is, and more importantly, where its risks are. Patrick says. “When you have that clarity, it’s not only easier to mitigate and plan for risk, but also to develop an IT infrastructure that supports business growth, sustainability and viability.”
“What that looks like for each company will be different, because no company will have met all 175 benchmarks. But it’s nonetheless very important because it’s often the things that haven’t been done that undo the good work that has already been done.”
Taking A Risk-Based Approach
To help companies understand why certain elements of IT infrastructure are essential, Nutbourne took the benchmark controls and gave them a risk rating. That rating corresponds to the level of importance a control has for a business. Was well as to the overall impact exposure that it would have on its operations. That’s important, says Patrick, because it makes fixing issues relatable to the business, as a whole.
Here is what Patrick has to say
“IT fixes and improvements are very often scattershot,” he says. “Most companies will focus on things that obviously need fixing. However this approach ignores the fact that IT infrastructure is a whole system. That very often the route cause of a problem isn’t obvious, or is more than one thing.
“ IT security is as much down to staff training and cyber insurance policies as it is to firewalls and spam filters. At Nutbourne IT support London, we find that clients tend to think that spending a lot of money on a seemingly good solution will make problems go away. But that will only fix part of an issue. So, what you have essentially, is companies spending money, needlessly. When simple cost-effective solutions would be better and more effective to address first.”
Patrick adds that this phenomenon is why so many organisations don’t do IT well. One of the reason why Nutbourne places such a high emphasis on risk. The whole point of the benchmark, is to give a thorough risk assessment of a company’s IT infrastructure and to develop a solid framework that mitigates risk, saves money and brings peace of mind.
“The framework we have developed provides clarity for businesses. It tells them where they are and more importantly how they can improve – and most importantly what it is likely to cost them. Businesses need budgets.
“Not only that, they need to know that they are improving. So, we aim to offset any high risks as soon as possible and then continue to make incremental improvements that are achievable. Within that we aim to evolve the roadmap and the framework to reflect the challenges the business is under and how it is developing. That kind of flexibility long-term builds resilience and strong foundation for companies to grow from.”
Better Business
A hidden benefit to the benchmarking service is its ability to highlight technical problems to non-technical people, especially decision makers. And while it helps to optimise IT, it also helps to frame IT’s role within the business strategy, a role that is frequently overlooked in traditional approaches.
“We’re finding with a lot of clients that we can reduce the overall cost of IT quite quickly and subsequently use the budget for something much more productive,” says Patrick.
The service and its benefits apply equally to all levels of business because IT policy is based on the company and its IT maturity, and not its size. That’s one of the lessons that this London IT supportfirm would like to stress more than anything else. And whilst certain controls may be more applicable to organisations of different sizes. Patrick emphasises that it is the quality of the controls already in place that determine how a company should roadmap its IT.
“We rank every control based on its importance to that organisation. If they have control X and Y in place, how important is it for that organisation, and what quality is that control currently at?” says Patrick.
“You can have good and bad IT policy of course. And a bad policy will show as a control with high importance but with low quality. Where the controls are uneven, it is very often the case that too much emphasis has been placed on the big-ticket items, what is perceived to be important.
“And fundamentally, what we are able to do with the benchmarking is show organisations where those errors are being made. Not only that, we’re able to provide cost-effective, workable solutions that in the long-term improve the quality of your IT infrastructure and the role it plays in your business as whole.”
Get in contact with IT support London today
So, if you’d like to find out more about our London IT support firm, then get in touch! Contact Nutbourne today on 0203 137 7273. Visit our services page to see what other IT solutions we can offer your business today.