The business case for a reliable and IT support professional is clear. With businesses and industries becoming more and more competitive, your IT and computer network needs to make your business as efficient as possible.
When something goes wrong with your network or IT systems ; you need to have a rapid response from your support company and it's engineers.
The cost of IT failure is high and it's impact is felt in terms of increased costs, wasted time and low staff morale.
Trying to find an IT support company when your company has a problem is a bad idea for several reasons.
Your company needs to have a strong relationship with an IT support provider. Your business needs to knows and trust the provider of your IT support in your hour of need. Even more important is that your service provider should have had enough time with your systems to know exactly how your IT Systems fit in relation to your business. No two businesses are identical nor are any two IT systems. A good service provider will take the time to understand your IT systems and your business.
Saving time and money is the most obvious reason to acquire a good IT support team. Waiting until something goes wrong is easily the worst mistake any company can make closely followed by relying on family members or someone who is "good with computers" to support your business. Usually in these situations something goes drastically wrong and the designated “IT person” falls short and compounds the existing problem.
Most companies understand the need for a competent IT Support engineer to take care of their daily IT needs. Some learn the hard way – don’t let your company be one of the minority companies that learns through financial loss.
The most common areas of IT risks to business are:
Data loss via hardware failure.
Virus attack / Hackers
Data corruption
Fire / Flood / Electrical surge
Malicious damage
Accidental deletion
All of these risks can be mitigated in various ways ( yes even fire and flood ). The costs on some of the solutions start from free, the cost of an expensive lunch to several thousands.
Simple ways to avoid / minimise risk:
Use antivirus
Have a strong well managed firewall (simple network access device does not count as a strong firewall ).
Store data in a single well managed location ( on your server ).
Have raid arrays on your servers hard disks.
Have a comprehensive backup system.
Take regular backups
Store vital business data off site regularly ( preferable daily )
Use online backup for business critical data.
Consider imaging solutions ( bare metal restores ) for critical systems.
You wouldn’t trust your company accounts to someone who is good with numbers you would get a professional accountant. Information Technology is no different you should get the most professional IT engineers your business can afford in the long run this saves you time and money.
IT systems are simply a business investment like any other. The benefit of the entire system and its costs need to be weighed against risks and costs.
