While many business leaders feel at ease developing a rapid growth strategy, appeasing cranky board members, or driving the company toward an IPO before their first cup of coffee, they shriek when asked about the company’s IT structure. Evaluating an enterprise resource planning (ERP) system or selecting servers simply isn’t their bread and butter. However, a healthy organization continually assesses IT issues for opportunities — and threats.

One of the most difficult aspects of leadership is recognizing when the time has arrived to make updates to the infrastructure that enables you to deliver for employees and clients alike. Before a do-it-yourself software projects goes awry or an application project falls behind schedule, business leaders should proactively identify potential IT weaknesses as a way to circumvent threats that might jeopardize security or render the network useless.

Below are the top five questions business leaders should ask when assessing the company’s IT solutions:

Is your IT infrastructure scalable?
IT infrastructure is not “one size fits all.” Do not make the mistake of taking this point lightly. Invest in systems that will grow with your business. Specific factors like the size and potential growth of the company should be thoroughly analyzed before a major hardware purchase. If your business is undergoing any substantial organizational changes, such as a merger or an IPO, issues in electronics systems, databases, routers, and networking need to be considered. The performance of your system should improve after adding hardware (proportionally to the capacity added) to be an effective, scalable system.

If your current system is not scalable or simply outdated, evaluate other options that have come on the market since your last IT purchase. In today’s market, software as a service (SaaS) is one preferred model of application deployment. The SaaS value proposition lies in the remote hosting of applications, which are then provided to customers across the Internet, rather than as an on-site desktop application or server appliance.

Read more at Inc. Technology.