Office X-Ray: What to Expect from a Business Technology Evaluation

What’s really going on “under the hood” with your office technology? A business technology evaluation might reveal the real causes behind symptoms like these:

• The OCR scanner that’s never worked quite right​
• The things that still need to happen to get everyone migrated to Microsoft-365​
• The IT manager who jumped ship and took all the passwords with him​
• The IT manager who’s in over his head, but not asking for help​
• The active directory server that suddenly decided to fail one day​
• The outdated equipment your vendor hasn’t bothered to tell you about​
• The 73-item to-do list your Pen-Test just surfaced​
• The outdated employee account that still need to be disabled
• The vendor you can’t reach because it’s Saturday 
• The printer that runs out of toner at 4pm on Friday​
• The summer intern who jammed all three printers​
• The IT ticket you submit that doesn’t get a response for three days​
• The request from your boss to cut printer costs by 20% before end of year​
• The cybersecurity breach that no one was prepared for​
• The Black Friday rush that crashed your network and left customers hanging

Broken Business Technology Needs Office X-Ray

The traditional piecemeal approach to office technology is broken. It just hasn’t stood up over time. Relying on different vendors to field all the daily little things that go wrong with IT, copiers, cloud and so on is just too costly, complicated and slow.

A Managed Office provider makes it easier to bring everything in your workplace up to speed – IT Help Desk, Copiers, Printers, Cloud and more. The best providers start with a thorough technology assessment of what’s really happening inside your office and IT — An Office X-Ray if you will. 

What a Managed Office Technology Evaluation Provides

The starting point of the Managed Office journey is a thorough Office X-ray. You should expect a professional assessment to deliver:

• Digital and physical inspections
• Accounting of all discoverable IT assets and users
• Overall view of printing/copying environments across locations
• Expert assessment of print use, volumes and speed
• IT issues that affect productivity
• Potential areas of weakness and risk
• Deeper knowledge of your IT infrastructure
• Understanding of the health of your IT infrastructure
• Comprehensive network and security assessment

 

All these findings can be gathered from across multiple locations, too, if that’s the structure of your business. In fact, the struggles of duplicating office capabilities across different sites add to IT woes exponentially. A modular yet consistent managed office model eliminates this roadblock. 

Expect Actionable Results from a Business Technology Evaluation

A thorough technology evaluation usually turns up some interesting findings. For example, in the print category alone there’s so much more to uncover than you might expect. Do you know how much you spend on printing and copying documents across all locations? You will after your Office X-ray. 

A complimentary managed print assessment calculates factors such as:

• Number of documents printed on a regular basis
• Number of printers you’re using (and need)
• Role of other document tech, like copiers, scanners and faxes
• Toner inventory and spend
• Reliable consumables supply with scheduled deliveries

 

As part of an enterprise print management assessment, you would expect an in-depth analysis, structure and game plan for all your printing needs. An Office X-ray broadens the scope of the analysis to uncover the real condition of your IT, print, cloud and security. No more surprises!

Solution Architect Guides Discovery and Next Steps 

How and where would you even begin to investigate internal problems affecting your business technology? For most companies, a “technology audit” isn’t something done frequently, but for some managed services partners, evaluations are routine. That’s one more reason to work with an experienced technology partner for your Office X-ray. 

A seasoned provider helps companies that lack time and resources to effectively manage and extract full business value from their technology. Look for a vendor with the resources and knowledge to examine these three critical areas of your office environment:

• Network health assessment
• Cybersecurity threat scoring
• Endpoint utilization analysis 
• Device mapping

 

A Solutions Architect often steps in to guide the evaluation of needs, concerns and issues, and take the process to the next step. They bring skills and tools for these tasks and deliverables: ​

• Assessments
• Environment pictures
• Discovery questions
• Executive summary

With data collection underway, the Solution Architect looks deeper at your pain points and end goals. This person conducts a physical inspection of the server room, network hardware and printer/copier landscape.

Tools Used in Business Technology Evaluations

IT assessment tool – Collects system and inventory information, not company or user data!

Print scan tool – Collects model information, odometer readings, print quality trends

Best Strategies Come from Deeper Understanding 

After the evaluation, skilled professionals pore over the data to provide a detailed view of your office environment:

• Overview of all assets
• Potential benefits and savings
• Discovered risks
• Full findings and recommendations

For one business, a strong hands-on assessment led to a deeper relationship. Realty Capital interviewed three IT companies, and among them, Novatech was the compelling choice, according to Realty Capital Director of Accounting, Kelly Vance. 

“Novatech was impressive. They were all about coming out to the office to see what everyone did and what the best solution would be to get us running. They wanted to know who we were – so they could give us what we needed.” 

Where to Apply Results of a Technology Evaluation

With a professional assessment in hand, the tech team – ideally both internal representatives and from the tech partner – can plan the best roadmap and strategies to gain control over:

• Equipment sourcing
• Workflow and resource monitoring
• Maintenance issues
• Cloud and mobile printing integration
• Security concerns
• Employee training

Technology Audit Leads to a Managed Office

An Office X-ray may be just the starting point of an ongoing technology journey, as one regional residential care provider found. 

“The audit was thorough, and the Novatech experts explained the results in terms we could understand and implemented the needed actions for our systems,” said Presbyterian Homes of Georgia COO, Gwen Hardy. “Based on the Novatech audit, we decided to explore IT improvements with their team.” 

From IT Overview to Specific Problem Areas

Sometimes a company wants to focus on a particular area for evaluation. Lifestyle and entertainment brand, the Zac Brown Collective, for example, had the Novatech team run a Network and Cyber Security Assessment. 

The Novatech experts analyzed the results, reviewed pain points, and came up with recommendations. Then they met with the Zac Brown Collective to discuss the current IT problems and needs.

From there, a detailed plan was put into place, and solutions were designed to cover specific requirements. The Zac Brown Collective got up to speed faster because of the upfront assessment. 

Recap: Signs You Need a Business Technology Evaluation

Still unsure if the Managed Office and Managed IT services are necessary for your business? All the more reason for a business technology evaluation. 

Here are a few red flags that signal your business might benefit from a thorough Office X-Ray:

• Need assistance with IT ticket handling
• Lack knowledge of latest technology innovations
• Limited number of IT professionals available
• Need more cost-effective solution to tech difficulties
• Doesn’t understand the full scope of the print environment
• Lacks insight into true document workflow and possible gaps
• Inefficient use of copier and printer resources

 

Here’s another article with ideas for better business IT, print, cloud and security practices: Is Technical Capability Embedded in Your Business DNA? It looks at what to do to become a tech-forward organization.

If you feel you might need help to evaluate office technology, let’s set up an Office X-ray for you soon. It’s the first step to business technology health.