For anyone starting their day, as they read this they’ll be able to relate to the pain we all feel every day: What challenges do we need to overcome at work today, and what is the easiest way to solve them and move on? It’s a situation we’re all familiar with and one that has plagued us all.
However, with all the glory of the modern digital age, comes a different challenge. It’s a challenge that may appear useful at the time—but it always comes back to haunt us. It’s what we now lovingly refer to as the “point solution.”
We’ve all done it: the right here, right now, need to fix something quick. So we put our fingers to the keyboard, Google search the hell out of the topic and, ultimately, come across some small widget that costs either nothing or at the very least next-to-nothing and BAM! Problem fixed for the next few days, weeks, or months.
However, as time moves on, suddenly we realize that what was once the solution to a minor problem has now become a systemic issue with absolutely no way to replace the solution beyond our own desk. Furthermore, cheap point solutions end up becoming obsolete much faster than robust enterprise solutions, and usually with little to no updates, no flexibility, and often with a pay-to-play option that times out.
This is seen in everything from IT security freemium products, to business management tools, and more—all instantly gratifying but, let’s face it, usually with dire consequences.
The issue we all now face pertaining to these point solutions is that nothing is a so-called “point” anymore. The days when everything was conveniently stored in a silo, away from everything else, and resolved with a band-aid solution, are now long gone and are a thing of the past.
As we continue to connect everything to everything else, the essence of that paradigm removes itself from the historical silo. With cloud applications paired with mobile access in an always-on-always-connected world, we must now search for solutions that address the needs of everyone and everything simultaneously.
A perfect example of this is the ever-vigilante need for IT security. The need to have cohesive and holistic IT security at every level of the business is now essential not only for business success, but also for business continuity. From the top end of mobile device security, to email, cloud infrastructure, all the way down to the darkest regions of the datacenter, all must interconnect. And without this interconnectivity, the holes in a company’s armor will be forever exposed to nefarious hackers seeking to exploit every opportunity.
Now, I know what some people may be thinking—company size versus cost is always present. After all, what small company, or even a “less complicated” company, needs robust enterprise solutions when they don’t consider themselves an enterprise. It’s this sentiment that also exacerbates the point solution issue. And though I don’t want to change my job title to corporate therapist, I’m here to say that everyone deserves better solutions regardless of size or corporate stature.
Unfortunate and misinformed views as they pertain to IT business solutions are something we must also move past. The idea that for some reason bigger companies get better solutions must end today. With the advent of cloud solutions such as AWS, Google, Microsoft, and more, we see the trend starting to shift. With everything now becoming equal as it pertains to scaleable horsepower, smaller enterprises can have access to the same solutions as their larger counterparts, without breaking the bank.
And as stated before, this is not just about IT security. In fact, that is an easy fix. The bigger challenge is to avoid all point solutions as everything is so connected that every point, if not accounted for as it relates to every other point, will be the cause of a potentially horrific chain reaction.
In all, the lesson to be learned here is that there are IT business solution companies out there that can calculate and connect all aspects of the data center from bottom to top and beyond to ensure all systems work as one. The easiest way to a better and more robust infrastructure is to find a partner who can architect the solution, saving you money, time, and effort, while building you a foundation for success.
And regarding those old point solutions—remember what my Mom always said, “It’s not polite to point.”