How to Know When Your Business Has Outgrown Its Current IT Setup

Businesses rarely reach a point where someone suddenly announces that the IT setup is no longer fit for purpose.

Usually, it happens gradually.

A spreadsheet is created because it's quicker than asking for a new system. An employee finds a workaround for a process that doesn't quite work properly. A new piece of software is introduced to solve a specific problem. Another department adopts a different tool because the existing one doesn't meet their needs.

None of these decisions is necessarily wrong at the time. In fact, they're often perfectly sensible responses to an immediate problem.

The difficulty is what happens over the years. Workarounds become standard processes, spreadsheets become business-critical systems and new technology is added on top of old technology. Eventually, the business can find itself working around its IT environment rather than being supported by it.

If that sounds familiar, your organisation may simply have outgrown the setup that once worked perfectly well.

The spreadsheet has become a business system

Almost every business relies on spreadsheets, and for good reason. They're flexible, familiar and often the quickest way to organise information.

The problem isn't Excel itself. The problem is when a spreadsheet gradually becomes responsible for something far more important than it was ever intended to be.

Perhaps it started as a simple list of projects or customers. Then more information was added. Several people needed access. Formulas and additional worksheets appeared, and before long, an important business process depended on someone remembering to keep the spreadsheet up to date.

This is particularly common in growing businesses because spreadsheets are often able to bridge the gap between an old process and a proper system. They work well enough for a while, which means there is little urgency to replace them.

Eventually, though, the cracks start to show. Different people have different versions, information is copied manually between files and nobody is entirely sure which spreadsheet contains the most up-to-date information.

At that point, the issue isn't necessarily the spreadsheet. It's that the business process has become more sophisticated than the tool supporting it.

Too much work is happening manually

Another warning sign is when employees spend a surprising amount of time simply moving information from one place to another.

A request arrives by email, someone enters it into a spreadsheet and forwards it to a manager. Once approved, another person updates a different system and emails the original requester.

Every individual step might only take a few minutes, but repeated hundreds of times, those processes quickly consume a significant amount of time.

Manual processes also tend to create inconsistency. One employee may follow the process slightly differently from another. Someone might forget to update a system, miss an email or send something to the wrong person.

This is where businesses often begin looking at automation. Tools such as Microsoft Power Automate can remove some of the repetitive work involved in approvals, notifications and moving information between systems.

Not every process should be automated, of course. Some decisions need human judgement. But if employees are regularly performing the same administrative tasks simply because the systems don't communicate with one another, it's worth asking whether that is really the best use of their time.

Your systems have grown separately

Technology tends to accumulate as a business grows.

A finance system is introduced because the business needs one. A CRM is added later. HR adopts another platform, while individual teams introduce tools that make sense for their particular work.

Before long, the organisation has a collection of systems that all perform useful functions but don't necessarily work particularly well together.

The result is usually duplication.

Customer details are entered into more than one system. Employees maintain their own lists because the information they need isn't easily available elsewhere. Reports have to be assembled manually because no single system contains the complete picture.

This doesn't necessarily mean that every organisation should replace all its systems with one large platform. In reality, most businesses will always use a range of applications.

The important question is whether those applications work together well enough to support the business. Sometimes the answer is integration. Sometimes it is better use of the technology already in place. Occasionally, it means recognising that a particular system has reached the end of its useful life.

Employees have stopped using systems as intended

One of the clearest indications that something isn't working is when employees quietly create their own alternatives.

You might discover that a team doesn't really use the system the business pays for because they've built their own spreadsheet. Important documents may be stored in someone's personal folders because nobody trusts the shared location. A process might only work because one employee knows the unofficial steps needed to make it work.

These workarounds usually develop for a reason.

People still have jobs to do, and when technology makes those jobs unnecessarily difficult, they will naturally find another way. The problem is that those unofficial solutions are rarely designed with security, continuity or scalability in mind.

A process that exists only in one person's spreadsheet can become a serious problem when that person is on holiday or leaves the company.

When this happens, it's tempting to blame employees for not following the correct process. Often, though, the more useful question is why they felt the need to create an alternative in the first place.

Finding information is harder than it should be

Most organisations don't realise quite how much time is lost looking for information.

A document might be somewhere in SharePoint, but perhaps it was shared through Teams. Someone may have attached a newer version to an email. Another colleague might have saved the working copy in their OneDrive.

Eventually, people stop knowing where things are supposed to live and simply search everywhere.

As an organisation grows, information management becomes increasingly important. Employees need to know where business documents belong, where to find policies and resources and which version of a document they can trust.

This is one of the reasons businesses often turn to SharePoint for document management and intranets. A well-designed environment can provide structure without making information difficult to access.

Simply moving everything into SharePoint isn't enough, however. The structure needs to reflect how people actually work. Otherwise, you're simply replacing one confusing collection of folders with another.

Your IT team is always reacting

Growing businesses can also reach a point where their IT function becomes almost entirely reactive.

There is always another account to create, another access problem to investigate or another issue preventing someone from doing their job. The team resolves the problem, moves on and then deals with the next one.

Some level of reactive support is unavoidable. Technology occasionally breaks and users will always need help.

The problem comes when there is never enough time to step back and improve the underlying environment.

If the same issues keep appearing, constantly resolving the symptoms doesn't address the cause. An IT team that spends all of its time firefighting has little opportunity to improve systems, strengthen security or plan for the future.

This is one reason some businesses choose to work with a managed IT partner. It can provide additional capacity for day-to-day support while allowing more attention to be given to improving the wider technology environment.

The business has changed, but the technology hasn't

Sometimes the problem is simply that the organisation is no longer the business it was when its IT setup was originally designed.

Technology that worked well for a company of 20 people might become increasingly difficult to manage when there are 100 employees. A process that worked when one person handled approvals may no longer be practical when several departments are involved.

The same applies to geographical growth, new services, additional locations and changes in how employees work.

Businesses evolve. Their technology environments don't always evolve with them.

This doesn't mean every growing business needs a complete digital transformation programme. Often, relatively small changes can make a significant difference. But it is worth reviewing the environment occasionally to make sure it still reflects the way the organisation operates today rather than the way it operated several years ago.

You may have more technology than you need

Outgrowing an IT setup doesn't always mean the answer is more technology.

Sometimes the opposite is true.

Over time, businesses can end up paying for several applications that perform similar functions. One department adopts a new tool while another continues using the old one. Licences remain assigned to people who no longer need them. Features already available in Microsoft 365 are replaced by another subscription because nobody realised they were available.

The result can be a technology environment that is both expensive and unnecessarily complicated.

Reviewing your IT setup can reveal opportunities to consolidate systems and make better use of the technology you already have. For businesses using Microsoft 365, there is often more functionality available than employees realise.

So, what should you do if this sounds familiar?

Realising that your IT environment needs attention doesn't mean you need to throw everything away and start again.

In fact, replacing systems before understanding the problem can simply create another layer of technology.

A better starting point is to look at how the business actually operates. Where are people spending unnecessary time? Which processes rely on manual work? Where is information duplicated? What technology is being underused, and where are employees creating their own workarounds?

Once those questions have been answered, the priorities usually become clearer.

The solution might involve improving document management through SharePoint, automating repetitive processes with Power Automate or building a more suitable application using Power Apps. Some businesses may need to integrate existing systems, while others may simply need better support and management of the technology they already have.

The important thing is that the technology follows the needs of the business, rather than the other way around.

Your IT setup should grow with your business

Technology should make it easier to run your organisation. As your business grows, your IT environment should be able to support that growth rather than becoming another obstacle to work around.

Spreadsheets, manual processes and disconnected systems aren't always problems in isolation. But when they begin to dominate the way people work, they can indicate that the business has outgrown the approach that once served it well.

Recognising that doesn't mean you have to change everything overnight.

It simply means taking the time to understand what is working, what isn't and where improvements would make the biggest difference.

At Dolphin, we help businesses review their existing technology environment and identify practical opportunities to improve the way they work. Whether that involves managed IT services, SharePoint, process automation, WEBCON or a broader digital transformation strategy, the starting point is always understanding the business first.

If you're beginning to feel that your technology is holding your organisation back rather than supporting it, our free Microsoft environment assessment can help you understand where your biggest opportunities for improvement may be.