TTX TAKES CHARGE

In the summer of 2007 TTX decided that it was finally time to upgrade it’s IT infrastructure to save the company some money. The article was highlighted in baseline magazine (http://www.baselinemag.com/). The goal was to make the website more effective at gathering the information from the customers, and reduce the number of customer service staff.
The results were impressive according to the article (http://www.baselinemag.com/c/a/IT-Management/On-the-Right-Track-580119/1/) with a successful integration of new software and business processes they were able to reduce their service desk staff by 50% and have better customer experience.
This got me to thinking about many of the businesses that still have not adopted an appropriate modernized IT strategy, or any IT strategy for that matter. In some of my dealings with some medium sized businesses I have noticed that the software that they use is so antiquated. I would have to believe that the security systems protecting the data and information contained in the is antiquated as well, if there is any protection at all. Small business usually cuts corners where it can and one place that is not obvious to customers is behind the IT scenes. I remember back to when the Y2K problem was identified. Software was still in use that was written in the 1970’s which accounted for the massive effort to check and prepare software for the change in millennium. What I learned from that was good software can last a long time and be forgotten.
I got to rambling here, but sometimes that is what happens in a blog. I must be on an information kick today because my take away from these thoughts and this article is that so many businesses are so far behind the times in IT infrastructure and protection of the information that one must be ever-vigilant with the protection of what information is shared.