An IT Audit is absolutely needed in 2021 especially post-covid & back to the office with normal employee traffic.  Taking an IT Audit does not mean your environment is incorrect, mis-configured or unsecured.  IT Audits help achieve FinOps, Cloud Usage across the business & Optimization.  Following an IT Audit, organizations should expect an output to support OPEX reduction while improving functionality, meaning you will lower costs but increase your tech posture to support the business.  IT Audits pull out designs/architectures, BCDRs, vendor Master Services Contracts, people and process to support your business.

 

IT Audit Areas – 5 Ways an IT Audit can quickly produce actionable results:

  1. Network IT Audit:Most organizations are spending on average 30% more on traditional WAN & Internet costs to support their business.  However, many of them reacted to Covid by deploying more SaaS & IaaS instances to support their business.  This allowed them to reduce the need for the traditional corporate WAN simply because nobody was at the office.
    1. Telecommunications Contracts Expired:  Most contracts expire as IT teams have limited resources to begin contract negotiations 6 months prior to term end.  5 Ways to reduce Telecom Expense
    2. Is SDWANas we know it required?  In this new office world, besides the Internet and Unified Communications, where are your corporate applications?  If they all reside in the Cloud, do you need SDWAN?  Perhaps the organization shifts to a Zero Trust Remote
  2. Voice IT Audit:If your office still has a legacy PBX or an outdated VOIP environment, you could save expense while improving employee and customer communications.  Most employees spent time remote the past year+ and utilized their Cell Phone, Video conferencing or other services to communicate.
    1. Review Current UC/VOIP architecture.  Does it provide all of the voice/text/video features without hidden charges such as long distance?
    2. Conference Room IT Audit:  You left those old conference rooms idle for months, sitting in the dark with poor cameras and display for Zoom meetings.  Many people can’t get the conference rooms to work correctly.  This is a good opportunity to refresh the rooms
  3. BCDR IT Audit:  When was the last time you reviewed your Business Continuity Plan or RTO to RPO?  Nobody enjoys planning for negative events however a regular annual review does pull out process improvements, failover cost reduction planning and more.
  4. Cloud IT Audit:  IaaS audits are a great way to pause and review all of the resources in productions, testing & development for your business.  Often, organizations miss the opportunity to pull together simple resource charts on VM instances, Storage, deployment to users & the newest one, where their network traverses.  Additionally, this is a great opportunity to begin implementing a FinOps practice to build a cost-aware culture equally spreading scale
  1. IT Audit of industry Certifications:

Unfortunately, some organizations fail to renew or prepare for upcoming industry certifications to support their business streaming toward lapse.  IT Attestation, SOC Type 2, PCI, PII/ISO27018 and even the BCDR mentioned prior are all areas companies should dust off to re-review in their new hybrid model.

IT Audits can seem daunting and concerning it will cost the organization a king’s ransom to perform.  We regularly suggest to organizations, begin with the large ticket items such as telecom costs.  Often, this quick reduction in expense can help off-set most IT Audit costs which makes everyone happy.  Finally, your IT audit will not finish in 5 days, plan on a deep cadence to support this necessary review holding internal teams and vendors accountable for your success.  The final output should have positive financial gains and excellent documentation to prepare your business scale for 2022!