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The Basics of Lifecycle Management:
Why Do Businesses Need Lifecycle Management?
The value of lifecycle management is rooted in oversight of the entire IT environment. While the IT department is likely to take that role in a larger enterprise, there are many companies that don’t have the in-house resources to guide lifecycle management decisions that have a big impact on smaller business budgets. This is especially true with small-and-medium businesses (SMBs).
Technology providers are increasingly recognizing the opportunities available to them to offer support for rapidly changing enterprise IT environments. From assessing business needs to procurement and security training, providers see that enterprises need this essential set of services.
Overall, lifecycle management simplifies IT.
The Risks of Unmanaged Technology
Managing technology is becoming more complicated for enterprises and small-and-medium businesses (SMB). Monitoring and maintaining equipment and keeping it up-to-date for patches or software updates can be daunting. The process of developing a lifecycle management strategy may seem overwhelming, but there are a number of risks associated with a failure to develop this type of strategy:
- Loss of Potential Opportunities. Technology is the backbone of digital transformation for businesses. Unmanaged technology WILL result in lost business opportunities!
- Failure of Business Processes. When your technology isn’t managed, it affects both your reputation and your revenue.
- Unanticipated Costs. When a failure occurs, addressing the situation can be costly and time-consuming. When you are operating in crisis mode, you’ll incur costs that wouldn’t impact you if they were planned for or if you had avoided the crisis with a Lifecycle Management strategy.
- Loss of Customers and Revenue. If you experience a system failure, or if a valuable feature is no longer available to your customers because the provider no longer supports it, what level of inconvenience will your customers tolerate? If your system is down for a few hours, or a full day, what’s the impact on your revenue?
- Missed Cost Savings Opportunities. From negotiating with providers through long-term business relationships to securing special pricing by buying devices in a bundle, there are cost savings that come with outsourcing lifecycle management to a service agent. They can negotiate better pricing and help you anticipate upcoming costs that will impact your IT budget.
- Complexity in the Environment. Investing in Lifecycle Management comes with some distinct perks that ease the complexity of enterprise IT. From receiving one simple invoice each month to only having a single contact and phone call to make when there’s a problem, Lifecycle Management can ease the stress of a system issue.

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