Is your business ready for the new year?

An informative guide from Stiperstone

| Review risks. Reduce unnecessary costs. Start the new year with a clearer IT plan. |

As the year draws to a close, most businesses are reviewing budgets, setting targets and planning for the months ahead.

But there’s another area that deserves attention before everyone switches on their out-of-office messages: your IT environment.

Over the course of a year, technology rarely stays still. Employees join and leave. Permissions change. New software is introduced. Devices are added. Data grows. Security risks evolve.

Small changes can quickly add up.

A year-end IT review gives you an opportunity to tidy things up, identify potential risks and make sure your technology is ready to support the business in the year ahead.

Here’s what should be on your checklist.

1. Review User Accounts and Access

Start with a simple question:

| Does everyone still have access to what they actually need? |

Employees change roles, responsibilities move between departments and people leave the business. But access permissions aren’t always updated at the same time.

Review:

· Active user accounts

· Microsoft 365 permissions

· Shared mailboxes

· Administrator privileges

· Shared folders and files

· Third-party applications

· Former employee accounts

· Multi-factor authentication

Pay particular attention to unnecessary administrator access. Users should generally only have the level of access required to perform their role.

It’s a relatively simple piece of housekeeping that can significantly reduce unnecessary exposure.

2. Check Your Backup and Recovery

Having backups isn’t the same as knowing you can recover from them.

Before the end of the year, review what is being backed up, where those backups are stored and how quickly critical systems and data could realistically be restored.

Ask:

· What data are we backing up?

· How frequently are backups completed?

· Are backups monitored for failures?

· Is Microsoft 365 data covered appropriately?

· When did we last test a restore?

· How quickly could we recover following a cyber incident?

· Who is responsible for initiating recovery?

The key question isn’t simply “Do we have a backup?”

| If something went wrong tomorrow, could we recover? |

3. Update Devices and Software

Software updates can feel inconvenient during a busy working week, which means they can easily get postponed.

The end of the year is a good opportunity to identify:

· Devices missing updates

· Unsupported operating systems

· Outdated applications

· Unused software

· Ageing hardware

· Devices approaching replacement

Unsupported technology can create both security and productivity problems, so identifying it now allows you to budget and plan rather than react to an unexpected failure later.

4. Review Microsoft 365

For many SMEs, Microsoft 365 has gradually become the heart of the business.

Email, files, Teams meetings, SharePoint, OneDrive and business applications can all sit within the same environment.

That makes good management essential.

Review areas including:

· User licences

· Dormant accounts

· External sharing

· Administrator roles

· Guest users

· MFA adoption

· SharePoint permissions

· Teams access

· Security policies

· Unused licences

You may uncover security gaps, unnecessary access or licences you’re continuing to pay for but no longer need.

5. Check Your Cyber Security

Cyber security shouldn’t be treated as a once-a-year exercise, but year-end is a useful point to step back and review your overall position.

Look at:

· Multi-factor authentication

· Endpoint protection

· Email security

· Phishing protection

· User security awareness

· Device management

· Password policies

· Patch management

· Administrator accounts

· Incident response procedures

Consider whether the controls you started the year with are still appropriate for the business you have today.

If your team, systems or ways of working have changed, your security requirements may have changed with them.

6. Remove What You Don’t Use

Over time, businesses accumulate technology.

Old applications remain installed. Trial systems turn into forgotten subscriptions. Former suppliers retain accounts. Teams and SharePoint sites are created and abandoned.

Take time to identify:

· Unused software

· Duplicate applications

· Old accounts

· Dormant cloud services

·  Unnecessary subscriptions

· Expired supplier access

· Unused Microsoft 365 licences

Removing unnecessary technology can reduce costs while also reducing the number of systems and accounts you need to manage and protect.

7. Review Your Hardware

You don’t want January to begin with five employees discovering their laptops desperately need replacing.

Look at the age, condition and performance of:

· Laptops

· Desktop PCs

· Servers

· Networking equipment

· Firewalls

· Mobile devices

· Office equipment

Rather than replacing equipment only when it fails, develop a lifecycle plan.

That helps make hardware costs predictable and reduces the risk of unexpected disruption.

8. Update Your IT Documentation

If something went wrong, would the right people know what to do?

Your documentation should cover important areas such as:

· Key IT suppliers

· Support contacts

· Hardware inventory

· Software inventory

· Backup arrangements

· Business continuity

· Disaster recovery

· Security procedures

· Joiner, mover and leaver processes

Good documentation becomes particularly valuable when something changes unexpectedly.

9. Look at What’s Slowing Your Team Down

Not every IT problem is a security problem.

Sometimes technology simply makes work harder than it needs to be.

Ask your employees:

| What technology frustrates you most? |

You might uncover:

· Slow devices

· Repetitive manual tasks

· Poor Wi-Fi

· Complicated processes

· Duplicate data entry

· Difficult file sharing

· Unreliable applications

· Recurring support problems

Those annoyances may appear small individually, but across an entire team they can represent a significant amount of wasted time.

10. Build Your IT Plan for Next Year

Finally, don’t finish the review with a list of problems.

Turn it into a plan.

Fixed now

Immediate security, reliability or compliance risks.

Improved next

Changes that will make employees more productive or IT easier to manage.

Planned for later

Hardware replacement, migrations, major projects or investments that require budgeting.

This gives your business a clear IT roadmap rather than another list of technology issues that’s forgotten about by February.

Don’t Carry This Year’s IT Problems Into Next Year

The end of the year is the perfect opportunity to step back and ask whether your technology is genuinely supporting where the business is heading.

A good IT review isn’t just about ticking boxes.

It’s about identifying risks before they become incidents, removing unnecessary costs, improving productivity and making sure your technology can support your plans for the year ahead.

At Stiperstone, we help businesses take a proactive approach to managed IT, Microsoft 365, cyber security, backup and ongoing technology planning.

| Not sure where to start? |

Book an IT review with Stiperstone

We’ll help you understand what’s working, where the risks are and what you should prioritise for the year ahead.