Proper IT Maintenance Is Good For Business.

Don't you just want to tear your hair out when your PC goes all cronky on you? Computers may just be a handful of printed circuit boards, a processor and a disk drive or two, but they sure seem to know the very worst time to embark on a go-slow, or even blue screen if you are one of the unlucky ones hit by a bad Windows update or some malware downloaded from the Internet. According to Brother International’s Small Business Survey, business owners now recognise that IT failure is a real drain on their bottom line profits:

• 75 per cent of small business owners indicate that a computer failure is more disruptive than an employee being taken sick.

• 77 per cent stated that a technical fault has hit their bottom line profits through missed deadlines or lost business opportunities.

• 66 per cent of small business owners say they are frequently confused by the technical tools at their disposal to run their business.

• 86 per cent additionally admitted to losing staff productivity due to technical problems.

• 31 per cent of respondents went so far as to say that they would give up a week’s worth of their hard earned holiday to make sure that they would never be hit by technical malfunctions again .

While business owners who felt the need to safeguard cash to withstand the effect of a further economic downturn increased from 44 to 48%, 52% see that investing in technology can help to give them a competitive advantage in their market.

From my perspective, I see that there are 3 key points for small businesses:

Proper Technology Management Produces Bigger Profits - Technology, and specifically proper management of technology can help businesses to increase their profits. If you can manage your technology properly, it will fundamentally fail less frequently. Taking care of technology will help you to take care of business!

If You’re Not a Tech Whizz, Find Someone Who Is! - As a business person, if you aren’t tech-savvy, you to partner with a company that is. If you can find the right IT support partner, they should be able to advise you on ways that you can use technology to best serve the needs of your business.

Technology Business Wins Start At The Top - 52 percent of people are right! You can use technology to make your business run more efficiently. The desire and the drive to change business processes for the better however needs to come from the business owner, both to make sure that your IT company produces the answer to the right business problem, as well as to promote adoption within the business.

You can download the Brother Small business Survey here:

There should be exciting times ahead for small businesses who have survived the recession, and technology can help you to become a lean, mean business machine.