If you are a small business, you need your IT to work. As a
small business owner myself, I believe we're in fact more reliant on technology than
big business. Let’s face it, we really need to sweat our assets to help us to
compete with big companies, and technology enables us to do this. We can deliver better customer service than the big boys, and react every bit as quickly as they can ... just as long as our IT keeps running.
Since the onset of the internet age, the speed of everyone’s
business process has accelerated beyond anybody’s expectations due to email and E-commerce, so it hurts when your IT fails. What’s more I’m convinced that
technology has its own sixth sense that tells it exactly the right time to
throw a hissy fit to cause us the most inconvenience. It can be when I have to
get a quote out, get some marketing material together for a deadline, or just
when I want to clear everything up before I go home. That’s when the technology
gremlin strikes! Fortunately I have my own support department at hand that I
can call on when I need them. If you’re a small law firm, accountancy practice
or marketing company, you may not have such a luxury!
When we get a call from a new customer, it is almost
inevitably because ”the wheels have fallen off” their IT. We have even
experienced one business owner who was scared of re-booting his Windows server
in case it didn’t come back on again! I can understand business owners not
wanting to take their time managing IT, but surely living in fear of a power
spike is no way to run a business?
The idiom that an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of
cure is especially true when it comes to IT. If you only ever spend money on
your IT when it fails I can only guarantee you that your IT will keep failing,
and we all know the problems when that happens. Invoices don’t get issued,
customer service can grind to a halt, and your sales person suddenly becomes an
impromptu IT engineer. He may well know a bit about computers, but shouldn’t he
be looking after your clients or chasing down new business? Your IT will work
better and more reliably if you spend money on preventative maintenance. That
way you will experience fewer failures, your blood pressure will be lower, and
your salesman can get back on the telephone.
Am I biased? Well, I run an IT support company, of course I
am! … But it’s hardly rocket science is it?
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