The goal of a year-end technology review is to look at all areas of your IT infrastructure. Security, efficiency, and bottom-line considerations will be the key drivers for future initiatives.<\/p>

Technology Policies<\/h3>

When technology policies get outdated, people stop following them. Review all your policies to see if any of them need updating to reflect new conditions. For example, if you now have some staff working from home, make sure your device use policy reflects this.<\/p>

When you update policies, let your employees know. This gives them a refresher on important information. They may have forgotten certain things since onboarding.<\/p>

Disaster Recovery Planning<\/h3>

When is the last time your company did an incident response drill? Is there a list of steps for employees to follow in the case of a natural disaster or cyberattack?<\/p>

Take time to look at disaster recovery planning for the new year. You should also put dates in place for preparedness drills and training in the coming months.<\/p>

IT Issues & Pain Points<\/h3>

You don\u2019t want to go through a big IT upgrade without considering employee pain points. Otherwise, you might miss some golden opportunities to improve staff productivity and well-being.<\/p>

Survey your employees on how they use technology. Ask questions about their favorite and least favorite apps. Ask what struggles they face. Let them tell you how they feel technology could improve to make their jobs better. This, in turn, benefits your business. It can also help you target the most impactful improvements.<\/p>

Privileged Access & Orphaned Accounts<\/h3>

Do an audit of your privileged accounts as part of your year-end review. Over time, permissions can be misappropriated. This leaves your network at a higher risk of a major attack.<\/p>

You should ensure that only those that need them have admin-level permissions. The fewer privileged accounts you have in your business tools, the lower your risk. Compromised privileged accounts password open the door to major damage.<\/p>

While going through your accounts, also look for orphaned accounts. You need to close these because they\u2019re no longer used. Leaving them active poses a security risk.<\/p>

IT Upgrade & Transformation Plans for the New Year<\/h3>

If you make IT upgrades and decisions \u201con the fly\u201d it can come back to bite you. It\u2019s best to plan out a strategy ahead of time, so you can upgrade in an organized way.<\/p>

Have a vulnerability assessment performed. This gives you a list of potential problems your company should address. Eliminating vulnerabilities improves your cybersecurity. Planning ahead allows you to budget for your upgrades and avoid unplanned expenses.<\/p>

Cloud Use & Shadow IT<\/h3>

Review your use of cloud applications. Are certain apps hardly used? Do you have redundancies in your cloud environment? A review can help you cut waste and save money.<\/p>

Also, look for uses of shadow IT by employees. These are cloud applications that are being used for work but did not go through approval. Management may not even be aware of them. Remove this security risk by either closing the accounts or officially approving them.<\/p>

Customer-Facing Technology<\/h3>

Don\u2019t forget to look at the customer experience of your technology infrastructure. Go through your website and contact process as a customer would.<\/p>

If you get frustrated by things like site navigation, then your customers and leads may be too. Include optimizations to your customer-facing technology in your new year plans.<\/p>