Business as usual (BAU) support represents regular work tasks within an IT department. They reflect tasks that key IT personnel perform to maintain technology systems with minimal potential disruption to business operations.
BAU tasks may include routine tasks such as infrastructure management, network monitoring, software patching, hardware driver updates, and other responsibilities. Troubleshooting – working a problem to its eventual resolution – also falls under this remit. Furthermore, ongoing IT projects are also included.
These regular tasks are required for the continual smooth operation of the enterprise. They are distinct from time-limited work focused on special projects, fresh developments, and other ad hoc activities.
Understanding BAU IT Support
BAU IT support focuses on the performance of repetitive tasks. These are essential for the continued health of complex IT systems that employees depend on.
A failure to maintain continuous rigour on these support tasks quickly results in interruptions to normal business routines. Furthermore, customer interactions become laboured when employees are unable to complete tasks promptly; interrupting workflows and affecting customer satisfaction scores.
BAU tasks are continuous rather than time-bound or finite. Some examples include the following:
- User record creation, deletion, and permission management.
- Network oversight and management.
- Software upgrades, updates, and patching.
- Hardware maintenance, repair, and replacements.
- Cybersecurity oversight and response.
- Data backup routines and/or verification of automated backup solutions.
By contrast, IT project tasks are distinctly different. Rather than ongoing and open-ended, they are directly tied to business goals, expected deliverables, and specific timeframes.
New technologies or software package deployment are often involved. These require an initial study, a viability review, final product selection, installation, configuration, testing, and verification once the installation is complete.
In the end, not all IT projects happen just once. Instead, once finalised, they often get integrated into existing BAU systems. As such, they eventually become part of new routines for IT staff to manage and maintain. However, they add to the existing workload before this occurs.
The Challenges of Balancing BAU and IT Projects
Chief technology officers (CTOs) and IT managers understand the potential difficulties inherent in balancing BAU tasks with ad hoc IT projects.
It is rare to manage an IT department that is not always overwhelmed. Avoiding overtime to allow staff adequate rest avoids sub-optimal performance, including human errors.
Actively engaging in interesting IT projects while managing BAU responsibilities is difficult. Few IT departments achieve this balancing feat, because:
- Work on one-off projects takes too long or gets completed poorly because of a split focus.
- Staff become intently drawn to fascinating IT projects far removed from their more mundane BAU duties. Inevitably, this can result in them dropping the ball. A ripple effect occurs affecting business operations. For example, security patches are not implemented quickly or new user accounts are not promptly added for new hires.
For the IT staff themselves, it is also somewhat frustrating. Individuals often feel torn between two areas of focus and worry they are not performing well in either. Some favour a singular focus on new IT projects and dropping BAU work altogether. Others prefer the predictability of regular IT tasks.
Diligently allocating resources is a daily goal but difficult to achieve. Trying to do it all in-house only makes this less likely to succeed. Working with an IT service provider like Microbyte frees staff to dedicate themselves to exciting projects.
Strategies for Effective BAU IT Support
Actively developing methods aimed at streamlining BAU tasks increases efficiencies.
Looking into potential Artificial Intelligence (AI) solutions, integrating new automation, and being open to sharing the workload are all beneficial.
AI-Driven Solutions
Increasingly, updated software now includes AI suggestions to reduce touchpoints and disentangle workflows.
For companies using Microsoft Copilot/Copilot Pro, there is the potential to use slideshow creation for IT presentations or to summarise IT data for custom reporting.
Encourage staff to overcome their reluctance to utilise AI; some fear it may affect their job security. Instead, communicate the goal of allowing them to work on several IT projects.
Planned Automation
Task automation is increasingly available but still woefully underused.
For example, Zapier integrates into diverse apps and Software as a Service (SaaS) solutions using triggered responses. Embracing Microsoft Power Automate is strongly encouraged too.
Actively Reduce Bottlenecks
Utilising specialised expertise from a managed IT services provider reduces workflow bottlenecks.
IT staff are freed up to pursue interesting IT projects without being distracted by the never-ending need to complete BAU tasks.
Future Trends in BAU IT Support
New trends are evident in BAU workflows. Here are a few of them:
Machine Learning: While AI prompts users with suggestions, machine learning takes this a step further. The AI actively learns from past choices to improve future suggestions. Ultimately, this increases their relevance and usefulness.
Automation: As mentioned earlier in this article, automation is becoming increasingly prevalent. Automated tasks, when combined with AI and machine learning, use increasingly advanced rulesets to remove limiting IF-THEN type pre-configured question/response scenarios.
Predictive Maintenance: Smart suggestions for upcoming IT maintenance create reminders for new/overlooked tasks or ones not implemented into established BAU routines.
Cloud Services: Moving to scalable cloud services reduces IT staff involvement at various levels. Instead, platforms auto-scale as required. This reduces instances where allocated resources are insufficient or need active monitoring.
Cybersecurity: The risks within cybersecurity are growing exponentially. It now represents a series of critical tasks within BAU planning. The need for real-time detection of potential threats and ongoing monitoring adds more strain on busy IT teams. This is not, however, something companies can afford to overlook.
Conclusion
The need for BAU IT support never disappears. Without allocating sufficient resources, enterprises risk operational failures or cybersecurity penetrations. It is not ideal to expect IT personnel to divide their time between important BAU objectives and IT projects – being pulled in multiple directions divides attention, leading to potential failures.
BAU support strategies necessarily evolve and require ongoing re-assessment to maintain operational efficiencies; otherwise, team members can fall behind the curve. Teams can sometimes be too small to achieve optimal results. Other times, balancing BAU and separate projects is the straw that broke the proverbial back.
Understanding, when to use a BAU IT support service is important to maintain established performance metrics. Doing that before a serious security breach or a deterioration in operational support is paramount.
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