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. 

The 7 Secrets Of Successful IT Support

Your business needs expert IT support to keep your business running, and you expect good value for money, but what services should you look for from a potential supplier to keep your systems in good health?

There are a number of components of IT support that need to be costed and catered for to keep your IT running smoothly, protected from internet borne malware, and also to ensure that any IT issues can be rectified as quickly as possible.

1. Hardware Asset Management
By maintaining accurate records of our customers’ installed hardware, we are able to arrive on site ready and prepared to set about the task of repairing or rebuilding the system that has failed. Without this information, it can take an hour or more from the arrival of an engineer on site for them to identify the problem, work out which item needs to be replaced, and then buy a replacement from PC World (the most expensive place to buy replacement parts) before coming back to your office to effect the repair. All this time, the clock is ticking costing you money unnecessarily.

2. Software Asset Management

Software auditing allows us to monitor licence usage within your organisation on your behalf and better manage software upgrades that are required on your systems as old versions of software become unsupported. We can then advise you of recommended upgrades to be undertaken as part of a regular review programme.

3. Antivirus / Antispware Management
Maintaining up-to-date security software is an essential discipline in keeping your IT systems running reliably. Although endpoint security software is self-updating, modern malware can deactivate it in the event that your PC is infected. Indeed, antivirus software that is out of date or deactivated is a warning sign that the PC may have suffered a successful malware attack.

4. Windows Update / Patch Management

Windows and application patches are the front line battleground in combating internet malware that causes your PC’s to run slowly and crash. Sometimes Windows updates fail to install, and it is essential to monitor these events and take corrective action to make sure that the relevant update is installed as soon as possible. Also, when a WIndows patch continues to fail to install, it is a sure sign that something is wrong. When this happens, it’s time for a rebuild, and by catching the problem early we can schedule the support work so that it has a minimal impact on your business.

5. Desktop Policy Management

Your PC’s will run a lot more reliably if you ensure that you only have software that is essential for your business installed on your PC’s. We monitor software that is installed on your PC’s, and identify any unwanted software that we find. We then either agree a change to your policy with you if it is needed to run your business or take action to remove it.

6. Scheduled Maintenance

To keep your PC’s running at peak performance, you have to do a little maintenance on a regular basis. We make sure that routine maintenance is carried out to clear out temporary files and defragment your hard disk to make sure that you get best performance from your systems. We also make sure that a full antivirus scan is run overnight on your PC’s on a weekly basis.

7. Helpdesk Support

All IT Systems fail sometimes, at which point the support process starts and we will employ telephone, remote or onsite support as necessary. The benefit of diligence in undertaking all of the above processes however is that they will minimise the amount of times that your systems fail. The most expensive component of providing IT Support is the cost of sending an engineer to site, and it only makes sense to do whatever is possible to minimise this expensive activity.

Our approach is very different to self employed consultants who may charge cheaper hourly rates because they don't provide these essential preemptive maintenance services. Lower hourly charges may appear attractive initially, until you find that you are regularly writing cheques for £200 for ad-hoc support. Our approach is to do everything possible to avoid onsite callouts which are not only costly, but also result in lost staff productivity for you while your staff wait for an IT repair to be undertaken.

If you would like to know more about our IT Support services, please visit our web site, download our IT Services white paper, or contact us by telephone on 01707 255060 or via email at info@clearview.co.uk.