Small and Medium Business : Supporting your Business

Supporting YOUR Business

Every small and medium business these days relies on technology. Whether it is your local farmer (who is now in the cloud!) Farmer in the Cloud to a Boutique Investment Bank in The City who cannot afford to be disconnected for a single millisecond for the major loss of revenue.

Now it's all well and good having I.T. setup and installed but it is a sin to not be on top of the evolving nature in the technology industry. Add to that the chance of something going wrong and staff becoming frustrated that they cannot do their job. This rather obviously can lead to a loss of morale, loss of productivity, customer dissatisfaction and worst of all a loss of revenue.

Most small business owners have toyed around with various options.....

Some businesses will not have any I.T. support. They have gone out and bought some kit and are happy with everything, they might buy some new kit when it breaks and carry on like that. Perhaps they took advice from a friend of the family who is good on the Xbox and wears glasses.

Hire an IT guy/team. On the face of it this seems perfect, your own dedicated resource for anything technical and ask them anything you want. They will know your infrastructure well and should be on top of most of the latest I.T developments. Problem is these can range from a junior support guy at 30k per year to a more Senior "Systems Administrator" for 50k+. This quite often isn't an option for most SMB's that's without thinking about recruitment costs, holidays, On-going training costs, days they are off sick and interest levels.

The beauty of outsourcing this to a smaller Managed Services provider is you will still retain that personal touch and they can be flexible enough to offer you a bespoke package to match your requirements. Whether you envisage needing remote support or needing someone at your office to help you. The smaller company with that personal touch are best positioned to understand your business and will be best placed to advise and consult on new/existing technologies that could really benefit your business.

Most people have heard all the Buzz words... "The Cloud", "Virtualisation", "Mobility", "Integration", "Software as a Service" but who should you take advice from and what should you use? There are likely to be applications and solutions out there that would help your business and potentially improve it.

An IT Support and Services can help here. They have no interest in forcing products down your throats, there is no point. After all it is going to be them with you for the long-haul so they don't want to be fixing issues or dealing with your wrath! They will be grateful for your custom and will often go above and beyond for that customer. In some cases referring business towards you with other contacts due to long relationships being built.

So why not stick 15-30 minutes aside of an afternoon in your diary to find out what options you have? 
(It costs nothing to have a chat and it's nice!) They may be able to help you, educate you and give you some peace of mind all the while letting you get on with what you are good at, concentrating on that business you setup!