How well does your organization stay on top of infrastructure upgrades?

Our reader poll today asks: How well does your organization stay on top of infrastructure upgrades?

• We always make upgrades well in advance of when they’re needed: 23%
• We make critical upgrades on time, but others tend to lag until a crisis: 28%
• We’re slow to make upgrades and usually are behind on doing so: 33%
• We never make upgrades until something breaks, and then it’s a crisis: 16%

Stay Ahead or Scramble. This one is split 51/49. While many of you stay ahead of infrastructure upgrades, just as many lag behind. Lagging and delaying necessary upgrades can be a “pay me later” approach but usually the payment is much larger when accounting for business interruption, opportunity cost, and stress on your team. Staying ahead of the curve has costs too. You might replace infrastructure before it’s outlived its useful life in which case you’re not getting the full return on your investment. Either way, staying on top of upgrades and conducting them before they become crises is a safe way to avoid major issues. So the next time you consider deferring an investment because of the cost, be sure to calculate the possible cost of not making the investment on time.

– Mike Figliuolo at thoughtLEADERS, LLC

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These results were originally a SmartPulse poll in SmartBrief on Leadership which tracks feedback from more than 240,000 business leaders. Get smarter on leadership and sign up for the SmartBrief on Leadership e-newsletter.