What Is An IT Audit ?
An IT audit is the foundational toolkit that we use to identify your business’s IT strengths, weaknesses, and opportunities.
Our process is team-structured start to finish, and we equip you with value-based options that move you forward. In partnership with your executive team, we navigate the evolution of your IT priorities, costs, and complexities and tailor tech to fit your organizational objectives.
The IT audit falls within the framework of our Foundational IT Assessment (FITA). When partnered with the other elements of the FITA process, it becomes a powerful, game-changing tool to advance your strategic ends.
Here’s what the IT audit looks like in context of the FITA:
- Team survey. We guide you through a 6-question survey to assess the health of your existing IT system and determine how effectively it’s working for your business.
- Executive interview. We dialogue with firm leadership to understand your organizational values and priorities at an executive level so we can align expectations and hit the mark.
- Network discovery. We explore your physical and digital infrastructure. This includes an on-site examination and digital detective work that maps your networks and data nodes.
- IT audit. Here it is. Equipped with the high-level and on-the-ground insights that inform your business needs, we formally review all systems and all gathered information and measure them against both our checklist of best practices and our understanding of your objectives.
- We create an IT roadmap unique to your business. This is a set of informed recommendations for every aspect of your system.
- We provide clear, up-to-date cost data. Cost data is provided alongside real-time projections for third-party services and equipment, empowering you to plan and budget across the next two years.
The IT audit is the hinge of our FITA process, and with it, you have the facts, numbers, and counsel you need to identify trouble spots, act on the findings, and scale for the future.
An IT Audit Is Not as Scary as You Think
In order to achieve your strategic objectives, you need to know every element of your operations—and which elements stand in your way. That is as true for your IT systems as any strategic investment. Our comprehensive IT audit works for you to prevent waste, identify challenges, tackle easy wins, and build a roadmap that takes you from where you are to where you want to be.
Our information technology audit from the managed IT services we provide are a CIO-led information gathering process that identifies tailored IT methods that maximize efficiency, avoid downtime, and set you up for wins. We apply the highest level of rigor towards the IT systems you rely on day-in and day-out, then measure them against industry best practices and your unique goals. At the end, you’ll have the professional IT analysis you need to make strategic decisions for your business future.
We don’t audit you. We audit the information technology that should be serving you.
The IT audit is the heart of the Barasupport services, and it just might be the most valuable IT process your business can undertake.
Why It’s Important to Have an IT Infrastructure Audit
Barasupport IT audit is your guide to informed decision making. It’s how we gain the operational insight into your systems, and it’s the element that allows us to make the strategic recommendations you’re looking for.
This IT analysis is the first step to a system that aligns with your organizational goals. Here’s why:
- Through this process, we discover all unknown equipment and inventory, identifying what is and isn’t needed—and what’s more trouble than it’s worth!
- We conduct a full risk analysis on the system in terms of costs, security, and strategic value.
- We prepare a budget so you know what to expect, all in.
- We check in on the performance of existing IT staff or vendors to ensure you have the right information to make strategic decisions.
An IT audit is your key unlocking the power of technology for your business.
Top Reasons Your Business May Need an IT Audit
We always recommend that businesses—especially those that are scaling or experiencing friction—conduct a thorough IT audit. It’s a healthy practice for business growth, and there are several specific strategic benefits that result from an information technology audit.
First, an IT audit offers third-party insight into existing systems. We’re happy to serve you as a neutral third party to help you assess your existing structures. Whether that’s examining the efficiency of current personnel or vendors or getting an outside opinion on how well your setup functions, our IT audit brings C-level insights to the table.
Second, an IT audit cuts through the noise and offers clarity. Too often, the importance of IT expenses and planning get minimized or dramatized. An IT audit brings balance and holistic discovery to your understanding of existing systems. At the end of the process, you’ll know exactly what you have, where disconnects exist, and what opportunities are available.
Finally, IT is an investment. The equipment, software, management, and maintenance all wrapped up in the term “IT” comprise an underutilized investment in the operational and financial success of business. Many business owners make the mistake of categorizing IT as an “expense” or “overhead.” Strategically, IT is actually a basis for investment with considerable return. With an IT audit, you have the insights you need to convert technology into a tool that both solves the needs of today and paves the road to tomorrow.
Our Unique Take on an IT Analysis
Don’t make any IT decisions before you’ve done an IT audit.
There are many teams that can and will help you cut costs—or that can and will help you increase them. That’s standard business for most managed IT service providers. But that’s not us. You’ll notice it in the questions we ask and research we do before we begin to make recommendations. That’s because, at Barasupport, we believe that any discussion of lowering or increasing costs, across the board, is a broken premise if not weighed in the context of your goals, values, and priorities.
That’s what the IT audit enables. We solve for the “x” in your unique business equation and give you the proof along the way. Only then do we align the cost of IT with the cost-point you prefer, making everything work better along the way.