Do you know where you would like to take your business in the next three years? We are willing to bet that you do. Do you know which servers, workstations or printers you will need to replace, upgrade, or add in the next three years? If so, you are doing excellent, but if you aren’t sure, we can help you with your three year network plan.

Three Year Network Plan

The three year network plan is an excellent document to use for planning out your IT budget for the coming year.  You can clearly see which network components (hardware and software) that you will need to replace or upgrade in the coming years. 

1. The first step to developing your network’s three year plan is to have a good network inventory.  The inventory gives us a solid base of current equipment and software from which we can build on.
2. Next, we communicate with your specialized software vendors to find out what they are planning on doing over the next few years in the way of upgrades or replacement of applications.  Their changes can have a dramatic impact on what types of hardware that you may need to upgrade.
3. We communicate with your managers or department heads to determine what your staff feel that their computer, software and network needs are and what they may be in the years to come.
4. We sit down with you to review your current inventory and discuss where you would like to take your business in the next few years.  This will give us an idea of what growth you can be expecting and the demands that you will be placing on your current hardware and software.
5. The fifth step is to take all the information we have gathered from your network inventory, our discussions, input from your staff, your specialized software vendors and, using the average life cycle of hardware, operating systems and software, we will put together a three year plan for you. This plan will outline what you will need to replace over the course of the next three years, as well as what you may be looking at adding or upgrading as you expand your business. 

Each year, the three year network plan is revisited and updated to incorporate any changes in direction that your company may be heading in, as well as obtaining the latest information from your specialized software vendors and their applications.

Based on all the information gathered in the network inventory and the three year network plan, we can provide you with an estimated budgetary figure for your IT budget over the coming years.