'Tis the season...for executing plans, last minute gifts, and sometimes a little too much time with the extended family you "love." Not only does it feel like time shifts quickly into fast-forward, but budgets are wrapping up, ROI and yearly metrics need to be delivered, on top of a persistent someone reminding you about Thanksgiving dinner plans. It's tough to keep up and there's more than enough to do — so why would you waste your time thinking about something as menial as tech plans? That's next year's problem.
Except, you guessed it, you're more at risk during the holidays than ever. This is because you're busier than ever.
It's not lost on us that this is an opportunity to try and get you to partner with us in 2025 for your tech needs, but ultimately, we're in the same boat as you. We must prepare and we're working hard to do so. Just like you, we're looking at how to make sure 2025 is successful. Consider these preparation tasks with us.
Ways to Prepare for the End of the Year Rush
#1 - Evaluate Expenses
When you've hit the end of the year, your biggest challenge might be wrapping up expenses while simultaneously preparing and planning for next year. You're calculating ROI, evaluating vendors, closing out accounts, and trying to invoice them all at the same time. If you're using multiple vendors to accomplish all of these tasks, there is a better way. Whether you choose Centre to help or not, investing in an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) tool will make these end of year expense evaluations 10x easier.
How Centre Can Help:
In 2023 we were excited to acquire a new line of business for our company: Microsoft Dynamics. This ERP addition provided customers with new ways to improve their operational goals - specifically their financial ones. With Dynamics experts joining our ranks, we can now help you migrate from Dynamics GP to Business Central in a flash, improve visibility across your entire Microsoft tenant, and scale your invoicing/financial needs according to your 2025 goals. Dynamics can seem confusing, so check out these resources to break down how it will revolutionize your business:
#2 - Decide Whether You're Insourcing or Outsourcing Tasks
You might already have an in-house IT team or maybe you're thinking your outsourced IT team is too expensive. Either way, you may be evaluating whether or not to outsource your tech needs for next year. We recommend you consider 3 main factors when deciding: cost, bandwidth, and cybersecurity risk.
How Centre Can Help:
Supporting or bringing a team in-house comes with extra costs you might not think about like certifications, 401ks and salaries, with insurance benefits on top of that. Companies often think they'll hire entry-level "experts" to cut costs in that area, but then you're taking a huge cybersecurity risk due to lack of experience. Ultimately, we're not telling you to outsource your IT, but what we are saying is consider the implications if you do. Check out these resources for more information:
#3 - Develop a 2025 Cybersecurity Plan
Cyber scams like Business Email Compromise (BEC) targeting business leadership and hackers leveraging AI to power their phishing attacks should put you a little on edge. Because you're the target. We recommend developing your proactive cybersecurity plan immediately, like yesterday. If nothing else, educating your employees on how to spot phishing and ransomware attacks is a great starting point.
How Centre Can Help:
Rather than addressing issues reactively as they occur, we can help you develop a personalized plan of prevention for cyber threats next year. Not only can we help you create your Incident Response Plan (IRP), but we can also provide you with the Backup and Disaster Recovery (BDR) plan if those plans fail. BEC is no joke, so check out these resources to help you understand the risks:
We're here for you
Are you stressed yet? This is where we come in. We pride ourselves on 3 things: 1) providing an enterprise experience with tools CMAC dashboard and our service delivery model, 2) personalized service that meets your unique business needs, and 3) a local touch that allows us to provide a in-person, quality customer experience.
Whether you already have an IT team or this is something you need right now, we want to help. You deserve the time with your family, you deserve to make the memories that you'll cherish for a lifetime. Let us take the tech stress off this holiday season - you deserve more.
Emily Kirk
