We have the smartest people in our company working on our IT, do we need help?

I come across many businesses where the best minds in the business are working on IT. This is great if you run an IT company but is probably reducing your billable hours or reducing your sales if you are not.

Take, for example, an engineering business I recently encountered. Basically, their computers were driving them mad. Their first question to me was: "How can we minimise the amount of time our engineers spend on IT issues?"

As an engineering business, this company's employees are highly technical. Because of this, management decided that their staff knew enough to, "look after IT themselves". So, the company bought some funky computers, some cool applications, and left their staff to their own devises. As the business grew, they "whacked in a server", and things were going pretty well.

Things started to go wrong when a few big projects were landed, and the company's growth hit a steep upward turn. Their ad hoc IT environment simply couldn't cope, and because the engineers were now busy delivering, there were no resources available to fix the many emerging IT problems.

Of course, an engineer with a project to work on is a valuable resource; where every hour spent resolving IT issues has a direct impact on the project work. If the project is delayed, it impacts that project and every one that comes after it.

All of a sudden, IT was no longer a fun thing to play with in their spare time, it was actually constraining the business' ability to grow.

The key to reducing the amount of time your staff spend on IT is to develop a continuous, pre-emptive approach.

First of all, have a look at your IT environment from a strategic perspective. Does your IT environment support your company's business strategy? Will future growth (as projected in your strategy) require changes to this IT environment? Do you know?

Once you've nutted this out, get your IT environment up to speed by implementing the technology required. I recommend getting a reasonable standard operating environment (SOE) in place, with standardised hardware and reliable systems.

At this point, you'll probably feel like you've conquered the IT monster. But don't leave it there.

The key to reducing the time spent on IT is to monitor and improve your IT environment on an ongoing basis. Don't leave it alone and wait for it to break in six months time. At that point, you'll have to start the whole process from scratch again. Monitor IT on an ongoing basis, and you'll be able to evolve it as your business grows. Prevention is always better than cure – so pre-empt problems before they occur.

Only then will you have a stable IT environment that lets your people do the work that makes you money, and allows your business to grow.

David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.

How can we protect our information from loss (or even theft)?

I come across many businesses that are confused about how best to protect their information. The bottom line is this – if you have data, there is a risk that you will lose it. And that loss may be catastrophic for your business.

First, let me define the multitude of risks out there, because we tend to overlook so many of them.

• The biggest risk is hardware failure. If your hardware fails, you lose everything in an instant.
  
• The simplest risk is the accidental deletion of files and folders by your staff.

Other risks include:

• Virus corruption of files.
• Physical theft of computers (even servers get stolen).
• Web-based attack by script, or by direct attack.
• Internal staff stealing or copying intellectual property, or maliciously deleting information (it does happen).
• Corruption of files during use or transfer – even during the act of backup.
• Overwriting of previous versions of files with new unwanted versions.

Clearly, with this range of threats, there are a wide variety of very technical solutions available.

It is important to first understand the value of your data, your obligations to your clients, the cost of not having data available, and the cost of a security breach to your business and your reputation. It is not possible to ignore security and be without risk. It is possible though to spend a fortune on the wrong solutions, and fail to mitigate the key risks.

So which security solution is right for your business?

Unfortunately, security is a double-edged sword. If you have no security, your risks are high – but your costs are low. If you have high security, your risk is reduced – but the cost is high.

Keep this in mind too – security implemented badly is a disruptive technology, so there is a high potential for your new security solution to impede your ability to do business. For example, connecting across the web to an open system is quick and efficient – but full of risk. Logging in via a security gateway with an encrypted connection and a security token is a little more time consuming, but considerably safer. But, if the token system is poorly implemented and doesn't work, it will either expose you to risk or impede your access.

Good security involves ongoing management of your technology resources, monitoring, patching and upgrading to ensure you get the right balance. Your backup strategy needs to create multiple versions of your data and move it off site. The more versions and the more often it goes off-site, the less you are likely to lose. If systems are monitored carefully, failures, intrusions and corruptions can be detected early to reduce impact of critical events.

Each time you limit access to a data folder or file, you add a level of security and a level of administration to ensure you are keeping the wrong people out and letting the right people in. As your business systems grow, the administrative overhead grows with it.

As you add firewalls, secure system logon, antivirus, backup systems, updates, patch management, archival and retrieval, remote access with secure tokens and more, the costs of implementing, managing and updating all of the systems grows. People like to believe that as the business grows, the cost of IT per person plateaus – but this only really applies once you have hundreds of staff.
So, how do you access the right level of protection without spending a fortune?

First, know your risks and understand the true cost of getting it wrong. Then, clearly the answer is not to spend a lot of time trialling a variety of disruptive solutions. Get good advice from people who implement these solutions all the time. Stick to tried and tested products that will scale to accommodate your business as it grows. And lastly – ensure that each system that goes in gets the appropriate level of ongoing management to ensure it provides the function it is supposed to.

After all, the only thing worse than not being protected is thinking that you are, and then discovering – after losing all your data – that you weren't.

Click here to read more IT Systems expert advice.

David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.

How can I minimise the time we spend on IT issues?

I come across so many businesses that spend an unbelievable amount of time managing IT issues; despite the fact that IT is not their core business.

Take, for example, an engineering business I recently encountered. Basically, their computers were driving them mad. Their first question to me was: ‘How can we minimise the amount of time our engineers spend on IT issues?'

As an engineering business, this company's employees are highly technical. Because of this, management decided that their staff knew enough to, "look after IT themselves". So, the company bought some funky computers, some cool applications, and left their staff to their own devises. As the business grew, they "whacked in a server", and things were going pretty well.

Things started to go wrong when a few big projects were landed, and the company's growth hit a steep upward turn. Their ad hoc IT environment simply couldn't cope, and because the engineers were now busy delivering, there were no resources available to fix the many emerging IT problems.

Of course, an engineer with a project to work on is a valuable resource; where every hour spent resolving IT issues has a direct impact on the project work. If the project is delayed, it impacts that project and every one that comes after it. Personally, I've never seen an engineering project plan that included two hours a day fixing flaky computers.

All of a sudden, IT was no longer a fun thing to play with in their spare time; it was actually constraining the business' ability to grow.

The key to reducing the amount of time your staff spend on IT is to develop a continuous, pre-emptive approach.

First of all, have a look at your IT environment from a strategic perspective. Does your IT environment support your company's business strategy? Will future growth (as projected in your strategy) require changes to this IT environment? Do you know?

Once you've nutted this out, get your IT environment up to speed by implementing the technology required. I recommend getting a reasonable standard operating environment (SOE) in place, with standardised hardware and reliable systems.

At this point, you'll probably feel like you've conquered the IT monster. But don't leave it there.

The key to reducing the time spent on IT is to monitor and improve your IT environment on an ongoing basis. Don't leave it alone and wait for it to break in six months time. At that point, you'll have to start the whole process from scratch again. Monitor IT on an ongoing basis, and you'll be able to evolve it as your business grows. Prevention is always better than cure - so preempt problems before they occur.

Only then will you have a stable IT environment that lets your people do the work that makes you money, and allows your business to grow.

David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.

What should we be doing with IT to get ready for Christmas?

There always needs to be an IT plan for the end of the year. So much to do, and so hard to get the IT guy to be there.

It doesn't matter whether you have an in-house IT guy or a guy you call in, chances are that this is the time of year he is least available. He is either physically on holidays, or mentally on holidays, or worse - he is flat out busy finishing off projects before the holidays and got his time requirements wrong.

As the weather warms up, I would be remiss if I did not remind all businesses to review and test their backup processes and ensure a good backup is kept off site in a fire-safe location. Even if you are in a low-risk area, this check should be done regularly as the only thing worse than not backing up, is believing you have.

It is also a great time to archive files you don't need on your primary server; including last year's email history. Just like we archive our tax receipts and records to reduce the impact on our filing cabinets, we can move old data to less expensive storage locations. What better time than at the end of the year?

December is also a great time to review licensing for your antivirus software, to ensure you'll be virus free in 2010. It doesn't hurt to check compliance for other licensing as well.

Let me remind you to check the batteries on the server's UPS, and make sure the server will shut down cleanly. Power cuts on hot days with domestic cooling running are common. While you're at it, test the smoke alarms in your office and server room. Don't forget the ones at home either. Test your security alarms to make sure you will return to your home or office after the holidays without any unwanted intrusions.

Now is also a great time to make sure your site records of accounts and passwords is up-to-date, so that anyone can assist you quickly in case of drop outs and disconnections.

If you know you will have staff working over the holidays in critical roles, now is a great time to make sure the support services they might need will be available when they need them. You should also make contingency arrangements with other support people if there may be a shortfall.

Of course, it is also your last chance to access the 50% tax break.

Don't wait until the last week of December, as we'll all be in a flat spin by then. June was a huge month for IT companies in terms of selling hardware, and December is likely to be even bigger as small businesses that are seeing the upturn rush to get orders in.

So, as I was taught in Boy Scouts, "Be Prepared". Don't let poor planning impede your holiday relaxation.

David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.

How can I create an environment that will allow me to attract and retain good IT people?

As the economy warms up IT people are going to get mobile again. If they have been clinging to a job for security they will soon move for opportunity, so it is an important time to create the right environment. What is a computer tech's utopia.

One of the keys to success in my business has been keeping hold of good people. I have done this through creating the right level of complexity and interest in their professional lives.

I believe the key with techs is that they need to be responsible for hundreds of computers and dozens of servers. IT guys love complexity and the good ones get bored by simple systems like 100 computers and six servers just as soon as they have all been updated. Hence the huge churn of IT staff in small to medium business.

It really helps to have an IT team of at least five people to share ideas and interests and stay motivated rather than isolated. IT is a cost centre in almost every business so there is always pressure on the team externally and internally. Where the team is small or just one person it can be very lonely being under pressure to perform where what you do is not popular with the rest of the business.

Let me give you the analogy of a dentist. If people go to the dentist terrified of the pain that will be caused, the dentist will have a bad day. Yep, just about every day is like that for a dentist. When IT staff are only called on to solve problems by people who see IT as a necessary evil in their business they will also have a bad day. So having likeminded people to get together with is important.

I am sure this is why you see so many IT guys huddled together in city coffee shops each day.

If you can make your IT team a profit centre in your business you will have a better team morale. IT guys hate being told they are a cost centre so they better be productive. If you can't make it a profit centre, at least appreciate the leverage IT creates for your business and tell them when they do a good job.

Keep updating your technology every 12 months to keep them on their toes. Every IT guy knows that installing or maintaining last year's software means they have a heap of study to do to get current if they need to move jobs. So if you keep them up-to-date constantly you will get the advantage of the latest systems for your business and engaged technicians.

Get excited about technology in your business. After all, that is what the IT guy thrives on. If the business is not exited about technology it will eventually drain the energy from whoever is excited about technology and leave them maintaining the status quo for a pay check until they hit the bottom of the job satisfaction cycle and get motivated to move on.

Make your office funky, today's techs are Gen Y and they will not dig conservative office environments.

Finally, this one has worked really well for me and others I know - buy a 46-inch or bigger full HD TV and keep a few games systems like the Wii and PS3 for Friday evenings. They love that kind of stuff.

David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.

What IT gear should I be planning to purchase before year end to make the most of the 50% tax break?

This is really important to every small business that uses computers. I wrote about this back in April when it applied to all businesses but now the key message is to the smaller businesses out there.

If your business will turn over less than $2 million this financial year you have just enough time left to plan and purchase all the IT gear you need for the upturn that is clearly on the way. We all hope not to see the Government stimulating our economy like this again in the near future so now is the time.

As a result of the new shoots of growth we are seeing businesses are looking to upgrade their IT equipment. They are experiencing good sales and know they need to expand their capacity and capability in terms of the IT systems in their business to support the growth.

If you run a business with several computers, now is the time to be planning your server upgrades or deployments. With the tax break it is okay to finance the systems, so the total financial impact in the short-term is very small.

You will get the 50% rebate this financial year even though your repayments will be stretched across three or four years. With some great financial packages available from hardware vendors such as HP and Cisco or software companies such as Microsoft it is a perfect time to fortify your IT systems to ensure IT does not impede your growth going forward.

With the economy on the rise it is a great time to get the big ticket items taken care of. I would be considering the following big-ticket items for my growth business:

• Windows Small Business server
  
• Terminal server for remote access
  
• Printer/photocopier
  
• Large format printer/plotter
  
• Backup and disaster recovery box
  
• Phone system
  
• Firewall
  
• Uninterruptable power supply (UPS) for servers and phone systems
  
• PCs/laptops/workstations
  
• Upgrade PCs to dual screens (so the set is over $1,000)
  
• Data projector
  
• HD TV for displays
  
• New car with company logos (okay so that one is not IT but it feels good!)

The purpose of all of this equipment is to improve the communication, presentation and security of your company and to ensure you are working as productively as possible while maximising the tax benefit available. By fixing IT systems you remove the impediments to growth.

With the downturn behind us many of us will be hiring more staff over the year ahead and the war on talent will force us to look for every strategic advantage we can find. IT is one of the biggest drivers of strategic advantage in growing businesses.

Remember, you must order and be invoiced before December 31, 2009 and you will be assessed on this year's income, so if you tip over the $2 million mark this year you will not be able to claim it. You have until the end of 2010 to install and use the equipment.

David Markus is the founder of Combo - the IT services company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth.

What should my IT staff be able to do in an SME?

I run a medium-sized business with 30 staff. What is a reasonable expectation of what my IT person should be able to do?

In an ideal world your 30 person business would hire one IT expert and that one person would be able to:

• Keep all the PCs, laptops and servers running
• Monitor all your printers and keep them maintained, unjammed and topped up with consumables
  
• Configure all your mobile devices
• Administer all your business applications
• Teach all your staff how to use your IT systems effectively
• Redesign and fix any systems that aren't working properly
• Let you know when your systems need refreshing and manage the projects to refresh them
• Give you high level strategic advice on where your business should be going with IT
• Answer every question from every staff member about any aspect of IT, no matter how complex or plain dumb, with patience, intelligence, plain English and a sense of humour.

Now give them a small budget to buy the right equipment, and away you go, right? Wouldn't that be great! And every now and again, once in a decade you find someone who is SO brilliant that they can do all that as well as play foozball with the rest of the team, and guess what? After 12 months they go off to get a high powered career in the corporates. Or to do massage therapy - it never seems to be anything in the middle.

The problem you are experiencing is very similar to the problem of building a house. You need an architect, a builder project manager, a carpenter, an electrician, a tiler and so it goes. Just because you want a small house, doesn't mean you need fewer tradies, it just means you need only part time resources for each of them. But each of them needs exactly the same tools and training to do the job well for a small house or a large mansion.

IT is just as specialised and requires the same sort of classification and distinction. In the case of IT, the roles are:

• Help Desk technician / 1st level support
• Network Engineer / 2nd level support
• Senior Network Engineer / 3rd level support
• IT Architect
• IT Consultant / Strategist
• Trainer
• Business Analyst
• Programmer
• Systems Designer

Just because you are in charge of a small enterprise, doesn't mean you can afford to (or deserve) mediocre inputs on any of these aspects of IT. A generalist handyman can do a fantastic job of maintaining the house that you have, and that's fine given that a house has a lifetime of about 15 years before it requires significant renovation. And they tend to have been built properly in the first place.

But IT environments need to be refreshed every three to four years and generally speaking you want to do the infrastructure and the applications separately - so a major architectural review needs to happen every 18 months with a good chance that something significant and strategic will need to change. And if any aspect wasn't properly designed in the first place, your handyman is unlikely to have the tools or training to fix the underlying cause.

Also, since the last time you looked, the technology and options available have radically changed, so you need to start from scratch with what business purpose you serve and what IT is required to support that purpose. Your handyman, who (hopefully) has spent the last 18 months stabilising your house to get rid of all the glitches, is not going to be positioned, trained or perhaps even interested in upsetting the applecart and starting again.

So if you are having trouble getting the results you need from your IT, and you only have one or two (very stressed) IT people in your organisation, this might be the reason why.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

How do we get our IT systems ready for new starters?

As the economy recovers, we are hiring again. How do we get our IT systems ready for new starters?

Staff induction is a key activity in any growth company. Getting induction right will make your company stand out and be more desirable than those companies who do not put the effort in.

All too often we get the last minute call as a new staff member is starting and there is no IT gear in place for them. Clearly it is important to get your induction processes right so that when a new person arrives they feel cared for, valued and useful to the organisation.

Being given a very old computer that was just dusted off will not impress anyone, especially a Gen Y person who has a great computer at home. You could let them start and then drip feed them with the IT environment they need over the next weeks and months. What if this leads to a disengaged employee who costs you thousands of dollars before they ultimately resign and cost you even more?

So what do you need to have ready to place a new starter into a good IT environment?

• Policies
• Security settings
• File access
• Applications that let them work efficiently
• Hardware
• Mobility solutions

Note I start with policies as it is dangerous to hand someone a loaded computer without first handing them the rules that limit the use of such a dangerous device. Safety briefings come before hands on use with most power tools in industry, computers should be no different.

Today it takes only a careless moment on the web with social networking to say the wrong thing about a company one has just entered or to blast out emails to a list of clients or a list of old contacts. Clearly policies on acceptable use of web, email and social media are very important to the reputation of your business. Starting here is always a good idea.

So once you have your policies in place and printed in the induction manual that gets signed off you can keep them on your intranet and send updates to your staff as they are modified over time.

Next you need to set up your server based accounts to ensure the correct security levels have been set up, giving them access to the information they require to do their job and keeping them out of the files they should not be looking at such as finance, HR or R&D.

Next, ensure you have the right applications to support the work the staff do efficiently. Not too many companies would hire a bookkeeper today and point them at a spreadsheet to manage the company accounts. They would have a finance application that automates and controls a lot of the processes and integrates with the ATO. Yet so many companies hire sales staff without a sales tracking application and admin staff without a document management system or task management system.

The right tools improve the productivity of your staff and the visibility of the work they are doing and save you hours of work and thousands of dollars. If you haven't got all of these, spend a little time researching what applications assist which staff roles.

Today there is a small business version of just about every productivity tool used by the big companies. Read more on software systems here. Then of course you need to include the training in the correct use of each of these applications, plus the setup and configuration of the right access levels for the job role into your induction process.

Now you are ready to select hardware. Standardisation across your company is the key here. Keep it as simple as possible to reduce IT costs. Read more on hardware selection here.

If your new recruit is going to be out and about make sure they can work from anywhere to drive quality of information and productivity of your staff. Mobility is relatively cheap today and will enable your staff to do what they need to do when and where they need to do it. You can read more about this too.

So when is the right time to start all of this?

Of course the answer is, if you are going to hire staff you need to have most of this ready before you look for the person. When you are so busy in your small business that you are forced to hire one more person, it is not the time to build significant new processes or procedures. Chances are you will not have time to do it properly then. So start now to ensure you are in better shape when you need to be.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

Our new computers are coming with Windows 7, is that okay?

Whatever happened to consumer choice? We are now seeing hardware manufacturers, keen to see a compelling reason for change in the marketplace, putting Windows 7 on their new PC offerings. But we do not yet know if this is the operating system that we are all hoping for.

It is pretty much an accepted fact that Windows Vista was a flop and that the best system in a long time has been Windows XP. We are still advising our clients to opt for Windows XP unless there is a compelling reason for selecting 7. We are not judging Windows 7 to be good or bad, better or worse. In fact we highly recommend getting Windows XP with upgrade rights to Windows 7 because we genuinely hope that Windows 7 is a step forward and offers significant benefits over XP without the downsides on performance experienced with Vista.

It is important from a strategic view point to understand why we give this advice. We are only interested in one aspect of IT and we go after this with a narrow focus: we want to see IT systems that improve productivity in a business and help the business to grow. If the operating system installed performs badly and undermines stability and performance it becomes an impediment to business growth.

This is different to home users who want new gimmicks and gizmos and who want the latest games to look "really cool". We do not need to get involved in discussions of new features such as media centre and other fun stuff. The important questions are: will Windows 7 increase productivity and will everything still work?

For business users it is often more important to have support for existing peripheral devices such as scanners, bar code readers, specialty printers such as label printers and the like. Where there are expensive devices being driven by the operating system it is very important to ensure the support is there for these devices as replacement of the peripherals can be a lot more expensive than maintaining the older operating system.

Many manufacturers have invested heavily in writing the drivers for each version of Windows and will wait for the uptake to grow before they invest again, especially at a time where the whole world is watching expenses closely. It is advisable to wait awhile in business then do extensive testing before upgrading.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

Should I get my custom application developed overseas?

Wind the clock back 30 years and ask: "Will the existing manufacturers move their factories off-shore?"
Only if they want to remain globally competitive.

The same applies to software developers. Many have already moved offshore, if the number of phone calls and emails we get per week offering this service at ridiculously cheap rates is any indication.

The question for you as a business owner or project sponsor needing a custom application developed is, does it matter to you?

The answer is, it does... and it doesn't. Sorry. Here are three scenarios as examples.

Scenario 1: If the developer you use has figured out how to harness cheap overseas development capability, then you are likely to get significant additional development for each dollar you spend. You win, they win, good outcome.

Scenario 2: If the vendor or developer is trying to do it for the first time or with a new offshore provider and haven't figured out how to manage them properly yet, chances are that whatever has been specified (by you) is exactly what is built, regardless of whether it actually makes sense or not. And chances are you haven't specified it in enough detail and in unambiguous enough language to get it right first, second or even the third time. So even if they are half the cost, three lots of rework will end up costing you more. Not to mention your time spent clarifying what you really need, rather than what you asked for.

Scenario 3: If the vendor you choose hasn't chosen to use off-shore labour (either because they have tried it and it hasn't worked for them, or they have heard all the horror stories and aren't that brave) then you are likely to get far more flexibility in specifying your requirements with a local team who can interpret what you have asked for. But you pay a premium for it. Again, you win, they win – but you spent more.

Your job as the project sponsor is to quiz the vendor or developer on their use of off-shore development teams. If they claim to use them, you definitely need to get references, case studies and ask them questions about how they ensure that the developers build what is needed, not just what is specified. And ask them about whether the testing is done locally. And who pays if the local testing uncovers misunderstanding in interpreting specifications.

In our view, it makes sense to send chunks of very well defined functions using commonly used technologies off-shore, and keep anything that is ambiguous or requires RAD (Rapid Application Development) approaches locally.

The skills of teams of thousands of cheap developers in the developing nations are improving at a rate of knots and it is inevitable that more software development projects will go off-shore. The winners will be the software development houses that work out how to manage them.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

I want to outsource my IT, but can't find the right people. Help!

"I am a business manager, with an IT Manager / Technician who reports to me. Together, we now need to span the technology void so that our company can grow, but we lack the time and objectivity to marry tactical management with strategic development. What should we do?"

This is the frustration felt by business managers in many medium-sized businesses and the reason is quite simply that a full-time IT strategist is not required to keep the systems working. But when your business does hit growth mode, this spells trouble.

The problem you are facing is the lack of an objective expert who understands your business and can align technology with your business goals. This goes back to the business plan and aligning the IT plan with it. This is not a job for a technician; this is a job for an IT strategist.

Technicians think about technology in terms of making it work and what features it has. This is kind of a "bottom up" approach that does not tend to play well with the management team in a medium-sized organisation. A strategist will look at the direction the business is taking and what systems will be required to support the business development and then will align technology with those business systems.

If you invite a technical company in, but just ask them for a proposal, you run the risk that they will just quoting to start solving problems as they may well do for a smaller company. You need to invite people to get to know your business and consult with you to build the solutions you require.

If you are going to outsource your IT support you will need to find an organisation that has strategic capabilities, not just sound technical capabilities. If the first advice you get is to fix this problem at a technical level, chances are you are too low down the food chain and you need to move to a larger or more competent firm to get a company that want to get to understand your company culture and business requirements before making changes.

Often we see this after a change in top-level management, when there is a renewed focus on driving growth. If the infrastructure has been allowed to degrade over the previous few years, there is a great opportunity to get a fresh perspective on how your technology issues can be addressed by current technology. It is worth persisting to find the right advisors. Who knows, maybe after that you can keep the in-house staff you have to do the ongoing tactical work if that is what works best for you.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

Our computers are aging. How do I convince the boss to replace them?

This seems to be a common problem in all levels of business. When we replace computers all we see is expense and problems and we forget about the formula we have all heard that says we should upgrade our technology every three or four years.As we read earlier this week, we like to hang on to our property but should we be hanging onto our technology?

In the downturn lots of technical writers started to try to win favour by telling us how we could stretch the life of our technology with cheap upgrades and improvements and how if it was working it should be left alone.

I have never shared this mentality. Even in the toughest economic times as I know the value of information and speed of access to it. I also know the limitations and frustrations of upgrades and that they do not reduce wear and tear. This conversation is not really about technology it is about risk. When it is just a PC, the risk is only to the individual and to the data stored on the computer. When we are discussing server infrastructure, the risk is significantly larger.

Put you self in the shoes of one of our newer clients. Just last week when they were working on the biggest tender of their lives - if they win this one the business will expand rapidly, if they miss out they will be in decline for a while. All the tender material is in files on the aged server. With extra people working on the tender response, the load on the server became too much and the server failed. This client has been nothing short of lucky as the data has been retrieved and the tender went in this time. The tender was for a multi-million dollar development and the client has a chance of winning the job.

The IT solution required for this client is many thousands of dollars but definitely less than the one tender response might have cost them. Yet they run the risk of hardware failure every day because they have failed to invest in the solutions their business really needs to mitigate the risks of data loss.

If you work in a company where data is valuable or important and continuous access to it is vital to the success of your business it is worth looking at hardware as an insurance policy in maintaining access to your data. Good hardware helps, as does a good backup system as I discussed previously.

If your boss won't replace your aged computers, chances are you have not truly captured the effort that is going into keeping them running or the time wasted waiting for them to work.

I can add personal experience to this as well, having just had my PC replaced today. I know I should have done it three months ago even though the old one was only two-and-a-half years old. The new one saved me at least 20 minutes today alone. I don't know about you, but 20 minutes added to my day is very valuable, even if it just means I get to spend a little more time on my article for the week.

Time is money and good computers save time and reduce risk. If your boss does not value time or mitigate risk I suggest you harp on about how good shiny new computers will look in the office.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

My wife's business is expanding to eight or nine staff - are we ready for managed services?

This will depend on your preference for IT functionality. The strategic approach to this is to contemplate the balance between functionality, quality of service and cost.

If cost is no issue you could outsource every part of your business that is not core, so you can build on your core skills to drive the success of your business. Your issues then become functionality and quality of service. Quality of service can be defined as speed of response, depth of product knowledge and customer service.

Cost must be considered as cost of equipment, cost of software and cost of people's time. In any business with multiple computers it is very difficult to know how much time goes into resolving computer problems or waiting for computers to work.

If your business is a growth business, the solutions you select along the way will determine the cost of support, integration and development as you place more demand on your business systems to drive productivity. Making the right choices along the way will influence the cost and success of future IT initiatives.

Some businesses are fortunate enough to find a person who has the ability, time and interest in helping out while others struggle to find the quality they seek.

I would like to say I have the solution and often look at how I could use bleeding edge technology to scale solutions down to the small end of the market place. I am yet to find the technology that allows me to offer the level of care my clients' desire for a price micro business can afford.

My business Combo targets businesses with over 15 computers because we find the value proposition of streamlined stable systems makes a sound business case and adds value to the businesses we work with. Others may claim a smaller client can benefit from the solutions; this will depend on the customer and on the technology solutions best supported by the support company.

No support company can support all the available solutions, so there are niche support areas that service providers are best suited to.

My advice is that if you are struggling with your computers, no matter what the size of your business, you will do well to seek a support organisation with happy clients in your market segment. This implies they have solved the problems you are likely to encounter.

You should not expect to find cheap, quick service that has great functionality. This is because good service comes from available people to solve problems and it takes good people to provide good quality service. So before you make your business decision think about the real cost to your business of IT not working as well as it could. Consider the real value of the time your staff spend working around the limitations and then select a solution that fits your requirements.

To some extent your tolerance for pain and level of interest in technology or the desire for problems to just go away will determine when and to whom you should outsource. Just don't leave it too long and upset your staff in the meanwhile.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

I am buying new computers so how should I license my software for them?

The simple answer to this question is: send me your list of requirements and I will send you the answers. Note that is plural, as each software product you consider has multiple possibilities for licensing. Not to mention that for each type of application there are multiple brands and multiple versions.

We often find companies running the wrong version of an application and struggling with features they need but do not have access to.

There are good reasons for the different versions of the software existing but it is important to understand your requirements and preferences.

Your high level choices, once you have chosen your product are:

• OEM (this implies it is supplied by the hardware manufacturer with the original equipment possibly pre-installed).
• Educational: for organisations involved in education (this can include religious groups and training organisations in some cases).
• Box Product: this is standard licensing available off-the-shelf at retail outlets.
• Volume Licensing: usually purchased as a single disk or download with multiple licenses sold by software resellers.
• Rental programs such as Open Value Licensing: here the software is paid over an extended period or by the year, this can assist organisations that need to conserve cash.
• Subscription licensing by the month or by the year: this is ‘pay as you use’ and works well where it is available, typical with software as a service solutions (SAAS).
  

There are many other models and each have their advantages and disadvantages. Software companies run training courses for resellers, as we do at Combo, so that our staff understands the pros and cons of the various models. We spend several days every year keeping up-to-date with the industry changes so that we can work with our clients to provide the right advice.

Most computers come with the offer of OEM software which the box sellers like because it increases their revenue. Just taking the OEM software that comes with the computer will be the cheapest by purchase price, but may leave you in strife with license management or upgrade options in the future – this is where volume licensing provides a benefit.

The best solution will depend on the size of your organisation, your cash position, the number of licenses you require and the licensing management systems you have in place for tracking usage through your organisation.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

Our small business has grown and internal communications are driving us crazy! What should we do?

Growing from a small to medium business involves a lot of frustration for owners and staff alike. We all know that tasks performed in a consistent and repeatable manner lead to better efficiency, productivity and quality, but how do you make that happen with a bigger team and changing roles?

Information Technology provides solutions to the inconsistency problem - particularly inconsistent recording and access to information. What many business owners do not realise is that they have already paid for a solution and just need to start using the tools they have.

Businesses that run Windows Small Business Server have access to an application called SharePoint. On this application platform we can run a Wiki to collaborate on information. Wiki is the Hawaiian word for quick or fast - a valuable quality when talking about information.

Wikis enable teamwork and collaboration by giving a format for multiple people to add information to a searchable central source. Documents can easily be attached or linked, leaving no excuse for leaving documents hiding in deep folder structures or buried in the My Documents Folder.

We can argue that this is not the best place for a wiki or we can build one online in the cloud, there are many possibilities, however many of you already have the tools and just need the right advice to get them turned on and working for you. The collection, collaboration and dissemination of information is more important than the platform if you have nothing today.

Once your wiki is live there are "no excuses" not to document.

As it is updated, relevant people can be automatically sent updates.

We implemented the system in our business after one of our team members learned the product and scored 100% on his Microsoft Exam. The benefits for our company have been many:

• Allows team members to simply edit the knowledge base.
  
• Grows the team's shared memory and knowledge.
  
• More efficient storage of guides, tips, hints.
  
• Repository for company policy and procedure.
  
• Repository for HR related information.
  

Some clues for making a good wiki are:

• Create sample pages and a skeleton structure - don't start with a blank slate.
  
• Edit often, encourage your team to edit and update as they go.
  
• Extend the wiki into new areas - team feedback, post project notes, organising events, discussing company goals, strategy tactics or operations.
  
• Encourage users to search the wiki for answers - and to update anything they find is incorrect!
  

Some traps for new players:

• Watch out for people who stick to the ‘old' ways - those who send broadcast emails or write memos / secrets in their My Documents. Actively encourage them to change.
  
• Make sure the wiki doesn't go stale, if the information is old, its value drops.
  

The barriers to entry for this technology are low, as all Microsoft Small Business Server sites have access to the software free of charge and the set up time is minimal (just a couple of hours) if you know how to do it.

The trick seems to be to focus on one area at a time and get some value out of that, and gradually extend its use as your experience and its usefulness grows. But it's relatively cheap to change your mind if something isn't quite working the way you need it to.

But get a small amount of expert help to get you started. It will save you hours of effort and frustration.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

I need a new database so why should I stick a "toe in the cloud"?

Now, more than ever in global history, IT systems need to be as cost-effective as possible. In software development projects upfront costs are very hard to justify. This makes it difficult to get approval to develop an application on a standard hardware platform. Now there is a new way of sticking a toe in the water for relatively low cost but the water is just vapour. The toe needs to be stuck in the cloud!

If that does not make sense to you please let me explain. By the "cloud" I do, of course mean web-based applications or servers. When developing a database solution it is common to build a development environment and run up a trial version of the application for testing and development prior to investing on a full server and system for the production version. This test environment still has infrastructure costs and may still require space in the server room and ongoing management effort.

Today, it is feasible to pay for a small number of licenses or a virtual server on a month-by-month or annual basis to run up the build environment over a period of months or a year. Only when the application has been determined to be of value to the organisation do more licenses need to be purchased to facilitate full access. In many cases, the application will not even require reinstallation as the hosted infrastructure scales dynamically on demand.

This model supports both rapid expansion and contraction of a business or business unit as licenses can be added at any time and cancelled at the end of a subscription period. This is in stark contrast to infrastructure-based solutions that do not scale well at all and have fixed costs of implementation and licensing.

Having this level of flexibility with IT systems can foster an environment of greater innovation as systems can be turned on and off on demand, without high overheads allowing technical departments to experiment with applications for quality of solution and fitness for purpose.

Reduced development overheads means less risk and therefore a better chance of project approval. The "toe in the cloud" approach to development is worthy of consideration.

If you need assistance with web-based software or infrastructure solutions seek expert advice as this is the newest frontier in the Wild West of IT. There are plenty of gunslingers out there and a little advice can go a long way.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

How far behind the bleeding edge is the right place for my business?

In IT we talk about the ‘bleeding edge' of technology as being the very forefront of technological development. It is called the bleeding edge because of the very high risk associated with being an early adopter of new technology. When we adopt a technology that does not take off we can lose a lot of time, money or both.

For some technology companies it is essential to work at the bleeding edge to find and exploit opportunities that technology developments present.

For many investors who recall the dotcom bubble bursting and many of my colleagues who lost jobs or lost personal fortunes on start-up ideas, this bleeding edge is no fun at all.

For many of us in business, investing in bleeding edge technology is a risk we can not afford to be involved in. If we are after stable systems for our core business functions, the bleeding edge is not likely to be the place to invest.

So how do we know what is the right technology and when is it mature?

This is a very difficult question to answer as some systems we think should be mature and stable just are not as good as they should be. I think we can safely put Windows Vista into this category as the business world has labelled it a dud. Windows 7 is about to be released and is getting great reviews, but unless there is a compelling reason to leap into it, it is worth leaving to the geeks for awhile.

My staff will be onto it as soon as it is released - some are already running pre-release versions as they should. But not on production systems.

The same goes for the new search engine out from Microsoft that I have commented on this week. Yep, we should all try using it and see if Bing represents improved functionality for planning holidays or solving problems with its unique decision engine. This is a low-cost, low-risk use of the new technology, but we should not radically modify our web pages to be optimised for it just yet.

So part of the job of a technical advisor in any business needs to be to get to know the business drivers and know when is the right time to introduce technology.

While it can be great fun learning the functionality of a new tool, it needs to be considered as an investment. You do not want to be the test pilot for every new product on the market unless your business is in the innovation space. Even then you need to be selective and get real results from your investment.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

Why should I outsource stuff when I can have a full-time resource at my beck and call?

For the past several years I have been encouraging businesses to outsource their IT. Over the past fortnight I have had reason to reflect on what I am asking people to do, and contemplate it from the client's perspective.

It was not outsourcing of IT that got me - as I have a great company looking after my computers - it was the marketing department. I made a mistake that I often see my prospects making. I assumed that a full-time person working on my marketing would be a better use of money than outsourcing to a marketing company.

I had chatted with some marketing people and did not feel they understood my business well enough to be a good place to outsource to. Really, in hindsight what I had meant was that I had not found a company I felt I could trust to do a better job and provide value for money. I outsourced HR ages ago but hung onto marketing.

So the key for me with outsourcing is trusting that the company I will use can provide the solution required, while trusting them to provide value. Clearly outsourcing will access much better marketing skills than my in-house solution could bring to the party; after all, there are several experts on their team with different specialisations.

So having figured this out, it got me thinking: how do businesses select an IT company to outsource to? Clearly they need to find a company they can trust to deliver value for money as well as good technology solutions. It's well-known that a lot of IT solutions cost a lot of money and provide little or no value to the business. So clearly they need to select a company that really knows the requirements and has a good track record for resolving problems in similar companies.

I think that in small business there is very poor understanding of industry certifications and so it's easy for pretenders to claim years of experience and look as good as the real experts.
Industry exams are not the be all and end all of the IT industry but in my opinion they help sort out the people who know what they are doing from those who think they can. Companies that chase industry certifications tend to be more quality focussed and are more likely to give good advice based on education and experience.

I know that I have spent a lot of money on training already competent technical people in new technologies to get new industry certification at the company level. This gives me confidence in the ability of my team.

So I have now found a marketing person I trust and have met his team of experts, I am sure I will now get better results for my marketing budget. I am also sure that if you are looking for an IT company it is worth taking some time to understand the various levels of certification to understand what a qualified company has done to be ready to provide services to you.

When you have the right team in place, you will be able to do more at a lower total cost to be more effective and efficient.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector

I don't know where to start with my IT strategy. Help!

Today, IT is a vast field that requires teams of people for each specialisation. As business owners we need to step back from the technology, leaving that to specialists and engage at a strategic level to ensure the direction of the overall company is sound.

So let's talk about the 5000-foot view - as a pilot, this one appeals to me. From 5000 feet we do not get a view of what an individual is doing, we can no longer make out individual houses or people on the street. What we can see is the shape of a suburb, the flow of a highway, we can distinguish cars from trucks and houses from sky scrapers, we can see swimming pools and parks and so on.

So how does this relate to IT in business?

First, the big picture

Well, the 5000-foot view of IT is about the shape of it, you need to be able to see a strategy for each of its parts without seeing who is pushing the buttons or the label on the box. You can see an accounting system, a backup solution, the general flow of a network, a website and an e-marketing solution and so forth.

When you appreciate that this is a 5000-foot view you will also realise that you can't just reach out and touch the solution. So from here you are able to get a real overview of the systems your business needs. You are not about to come down for a hard landing so you have plenty of time to plan your options and take advice on approach paths.

Looking closer

So with this level of overview established, we now need to dip down to 1000 feet. At this level we can see individuals and identify familiar objects, we can see individual fence posts and can just make out the thicker wires on a power pole. We are ready to join circuit traffic and identify our landing position.

At this level we can see the technologies we need for our business such as the type of software and hardware and the business processes that need to be replicated and automated in these systems. We are still at 1000 feet here so we still are not at the level where we can jump in without breaking our legs. So we can make more detailed assessments of what is required in each part of the business. We can lay the plans and select the suppliers and solutions.

The delivery

So now it is time to line up and descend onto the runway. This is the bit where all the prior planning determines the level of pain you will cause those on board. Hopefully you have the wheels down now and have your rate of descent under control and you can slide in for a smooth landing on the right strip.

In business this is the bit where the solutions go in. If you have planned well at the higher levels you will slide the systems in alongside the existing solutions and they will integrate well and add value to your business through improved productivity or capability.

If it all lands well, you are in for a smooth taxi run to the terminal and will have delighted passengers and crew.

Relating the metaphor

If you can break up your thinking about IT at the high level and not get stuck in the detail too early it will help you to design better systems that deliver on the business requirements rather than just delivering the ‘out of the box' solution from poorly selected boxes. This will help you streamline your business processes and gain productivity and functionality from your IT.

Just don't assume the solution lies with one person. No matter how large or small your business is you will need a team of people to get good solutions in different technologies.

Don't try to step off at 5000 feet, only to discover you have no parachute. If you doubt your ability to handle the altitude, call a pilot.

If you have been thinking about IT strategy and need advice on what are the best options for your business do not hesitate to speak to Combo. Our consultants have worked in many business large and small and can share experiences gained from other strategic solutions with you. The team at Combo also implements and maintains these strategic solutions so the advice you get is based on sound experience not book based theory.

Call Combo on 1300 726 626.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector

There are new IR laws coming in 13 days. Can IT help me?

Actually yes, IT can really provide some great value.

In the past month I have come across two software packages that assist companies in staying up to date with IR and HR issues. There may be others that I am not aware of.

In each case their solutions cover recruitment, start-up, performance management and business reporting. They are database applications that provide sample letters and forms for every action, from defining job roles to position descriptions and creation of job ads, through to staff policy and procedure templates and staff review documents, warning letter samples and termination letters. The sample letters and policy documents have, in each case, been carefully put together by IR lawyers so the value of the products appears to be real and significant.

I have not used either product in person so cannot comment on their content, usability or performance.

In each case the applications encourage you to create a folder for each staff member and scan completed versions of the template forms and letters into the system to create a permanent record.

In this way a complete IR/HR profile can be extracted for each employee at a moment's notice.
One of the applications I have seen presented is Key Business Advisors, which is a traditional install-it-on-your-PC solution.

The other is WorkForce Guardian, which is offering a hosted solution on a subscription basis.
Implementing these tools will not give you a complete IR/HR solution for your business, but it will significantly cut down on the time you spend managing the issues and documenting the steps and processes.

With flow charts, organisational charts and more, it will offer enormous benefit and reduce your dependence on outsourced or in-house resources by giving you a well structured central repository with a wealth of information at your fingertips.

You could create all this material with your lawyers but the time effort and expense will be significantly higher than it would be if you made use of one of these solutions where the creation costs have been spread across many clients.

Of course, each of the vendors offers a subscription based update service to ensure this stays current.

Do let me know if you are aware of other products that service the same space. Sharing of information is the key to our shared business success.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT support company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

We've just won a contract and we need a big IT upgrade. What should we do?

This week we have a case study. The company in question has just won a great contract to upgrade the software they provide to an industry sector across Australia and New Zealand.

Their supporting infrastructure is based on 16 servers - all four to 10 years old - for 60 staff and they need to upgrade the whole lot to run their project. They also have a really limited budget. What should they do?

What a fantastic opportunity to make use of modern technology to get set up for the next few years. First they must understand that supporting a server has a real cost of over $3500 per year and this is likely to cost more as it ages and causes interruptions to the productivity of their 60 staff members.

They should therefore allow a starting budget of $3500 per server that can be removed through consolidation. So if they can reduce from 16 to just three servers and shared storage solutions, the starting budget can be in the order of $45,500, just from the first year of savings plus reduced cost of management over the next few years, plus a whole lot more justified from productivity gains just to run their existing business.

Then add the real driver for this, which is the ability to develop and deliver their upgraded software product on a reliable & stable platform, getting the best possible productivity and lowest risk of downtime or data loss during the new project.

So if you are going to spend in excess of $100,000 what choices are there for you?

First of all we will be moving from single core processors to quad core processors, so the processing capability of each of the new servers is huge compared to what they had. As a result of this we can expect to run multiple servers in a virtual state on shared hardware. If we assume the whole lot will run on three dual processor servers with a virtual layer separating the operating system from the hardware we can be pretty confident that the eight processor cores in each box (24 cores in total) give us a lot of spare processing power.

Now we add shared storage via a storage area network or two. I suggest a mix of high speed drives for the line of business applications and transactional databases and some slower, less expensive drives for the offline systems and archived data.

Now with the right design and the right equipment we can build a system where each of the servers required can be dynamically shifted from box to box, test servers for the development can be run up on demand and then parked on the cheaper storage for use again later in the development cycle.

We can clone servers for testing without calling for new hardware and we can avoid downtime in the business if any of the physical servers fail. There is also the added advantage that this environment allows a test server to be run up in as little as 15 minutes, so no delays waiting for a spare physical server to be found.

This will also reduce the power consumption by over 50% and reduce the physical space requirements by over 70%, offering further cost reduction.

All this can be achieved with a 3% productivity gain across their existing 60 staff so, in fact, even though the business driver was the new project, the cost justification is there anyway. Why put it off until a big project comes in?

If you need advice on your IT talk to Combo. Get it right the first time. We can help your business Cut Costs and Get Fantastic Service on IT. Don't spend money in the wrong places, invest in the right technologies for your business.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

The economy has picked up. What should we be doing with our IT

There is a fantastic opportunity out there right now and I am hearing savvy business owners making plans to use it to their advantage. Now more than ever the strong companies with good systems are going to expand swallowing their unprepared rivals in many industries.

My perception is that there is now an opportunity unrivalled in our generation to build IT infrastructure. With government tax incentives available now to build company infrastructure just ahead of Australia’s next growth phase, this is the time to ensure we sweep out old inefficient technology and get the tools in place for productive work for the next three to five years.

If you are not busy now but know you will be soon, it makes great sense to take advantage of the slowdown to prepare. You do not want to wait until you are up to your neck in work with unproductive systems creating time blow outs that let your competitors get the upper hand.

With only a few days left in June, larger companies are running out of time to purchase the infrastructure over $10,000 with the 30% tax benefit.

Smaller Companies making use of the $1000 threshold have another six months but need to rush if they want to claim the tax break in this financial year. This will help cash flow for the huge number of small businesses out there doing less than $2 Million turnover.

If you run a small business with just a few staff it is time to think about new PCs and Laptops for just over $1000 each. A new Small Business Server will help with data storage, central backup and mail communication. All will be eligible for the 50% tax break.

If your turnover is over $2 Million it is time to think about server upgrades and phone system upgrades. Putting these purchase decisions off for more than a couple of weeks will let a 30% tax break slide by on the 30th of June.

The tax break applies even if you lease the purchased equipment and spread the cost over 3-4 years!

For these larger systems upgrades your planning needs to be finished so you can get quotes for the equipment and make the purchase in time. If you do not yet know what you need you need to get on the phone to your IT people NOW and make sure they understand the time lines you are working with. If they are technically focused rather than business driven you will need to spell it out for them because they are not thinking tax breaks.

If your business needs a systems upgrade, Call Combo NOW on 1300 726 626 to make sure you don't miss out on the government tax break.

There are only 3 weeks left till the end of financial year and time is running out to define your requirements, approve proposals and get a solution for your business. We know we are going to be flooded by the end of June, so contact Combo now to make sure you do not miss out on the generosity of the Government to build your business.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

I am looking for cost effective software-as-service solutions. Help!

I am in the middle of launching an online business, that will have multiple locations long-term and staff that will be located across the globe in all the major ski resorts of the world. I am currently trying to find a Cloud SAAS solution that is cost effective and has these functions: document management, CRM, sales forecasting, tax management and joint calendars.

This is becoming a common scenario today as smart people realise they do not need to own infrastructure to get global software solutions up and running fast.

Clearly you need a powerful but customisable email solution, document authoring and collaboration tools, document storage with a structure to it and a CRM tool that will expand to cover your vast terrain.

For online email for business I do not think you can go past Gmail where you can register your own e-mail domain and use Gmail to offer unique email addresses to each of your staff or licensees immediately. There is a very small cost for this but it will give you what you need for a fraction of the cost of other solutions.

There may be other solutions out there but I have not spent time investigating beyond Gmail as it ties in with Google Apps which we support as a business. This will also lead you towards Google docs where you can create and share documents with your global team setting access levels as required for collaboration. Gmail and Google apps will also give you the shared calendars you are after.

I would be pushing the shared calendar through to Salesforce.com which is the CRM application we sell. Here you will run into cost issues as Salesforce.com is not the cheapest solution for SaaS CRM.

Salesforce.com also integrates nicely with Google docs and Gmail, as the two company founders are doing deals to support their mutual drive to build the cloud argument for software as a service. This tool will instantly give you graphical insight of the stages and progress of sales of each of your sales people globally. The reporting out of Salesforce.com is one of its strongest features as it is easy to design reports and simple to represent them graphically.

Please note that there are a number of hosted solutions you should look at include Sugar, Sage, SAP, Microsoft CRM.

I hope readers will add their personal preferences in the comments below so we can pool our knowledge on the vast array of products that are coming onto the market in the SaaS space.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

I keep hearing I should have a CRM system, but I don't get why!

With a customer relationship management (CRM) system you can keep a list of your clients, prospects and leads just about anywhere - from Outlook to a spreadsheet to an old fashioned card system.

If you are the only person doing sales in your business (unlikely!) then it doesn't really matter what you use. But when you figure out what the industry leaders are doing with a CRM system, you might see you need something more sophisticated.

Today I am going to share a few ideas and concepts with you of what to do with a CRM. These are the keys that are helping me beat this recession.

It is clear to me that sales cycles are currently longer and more competitive than usual, as business owners put more care into ensuring they have the best solution before spending money. So, ensuring that EVERY contact with a prospect is logged ensures we keep track of each opportunity from start to sale made, and beyond.

I now need to target my marketing to clients more carefully to ensure it remains valuable to them, so keeping details of source and interest of each person or company is imperative. We systemically gather every piece of important information about a prospect so that when we do targeted marketing and lead nurturing to potential buyers, they are turned on by the accuracy of our pitch, not turned off by the volume. Could you improve your targeting of interest topics?

We have introduced well-defined lead nurturing processes that automates a series of messages, each with a call to action for each product line we offer. So now a quote for a product or service is followed up by a nurturing campaign run automatically out of our CRM application.

Of course, as we get more active in our marketing, both electronic and direct, we must ensure that we manage duplicate prospects in the CRM system. The trick is not necessarily to prevent them in the lead identification stage, as the same lead may come from multiple places, but to process them out during the qualification stage.

From a sales activity perspective, it is important that we can track our progress through a defined set of sales stages, particularly to understand where buyers are leaking from our sales pipeline. Are they still buying but from someone else, or are they just not buying at all! If the first, we may need to adjust our "product"; if the second, we may need to improve our call to action.

By being systematic about progressing each opportunity through the defined sales stages, we get a great overview of how our sales are progressing and what our likely outcomes will be over the months ahead. We are also starting to track how long it takes our buyers to move through the sales stages so we can see where people are getting "stuck".

It is also most useful to us to have mechanisms (again both systemic and in the business process) to drive data quality and strong segmentation in our existing database. Now is when we need to get the best possible results from the database we have. These people who know us and have met us over time are potentially much more likely to buy from us than total strangers if we have the right product to sell them.

By creating our marketing campaigns in the CRM and tracking who each campaign is run against, we are also able to build information that allows us to track ROI on particular campaigns. Which ones are working and which ones aren't? What other factors are influencing?

We also use the web to lead forms, to receive a lead from a particular campaign via our web site, directly into the CRM database and track that lead all the way through to a sale and then attribute the revenue and margin back to the campaign that brought us that client, even though they came from the website.

No doubt many of you reading this have similar CRM systems in your business and know the kind of benefits this technology is driving to your bottom line. I would love to see some comments below on where you are up to with your use of CRM, and how that correlates with your success in the current recession market place.

If your business is struggling to intelligently manage customer details and you need a CRM system, do not hesitate to contact Combo. We are understand business processes and can help get you started on industry leading Salesforce.com software. You will start managing your business more intelligently and with a far greater return on your marketing for increased sales.

David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

My in-house IT staff are slow. What are my options?

Many businesses argue that in-house IT staff provide loyalty and gain specific knowledge that solves local problems faster. However when I hire IT people who have been the in-house person, they often say the reason for moving is the stresses of having been a poorly trained "cost centre" within the business, with unrealistic expectations placed on them for delivery. They typically look forward to being part of a team of like-minded people who are part of the company's income stream.

For example, my business Combo looks after systems for IT companies, among others. These clients develop software, and had realised that they were spending too much time looking after infrastructure, and so they outsourced.

If IT companies outsource with all their specialist requirements and knowledge, who is there that should not outsource?

Now, I am convinced that if you do not have the capacity to run a team of at least three IT people you should outsource your IT to a company. But make sure the company you decide to outsource to has excellent management systems and at least seven technical staff.

Yes, it could be argued that I am biased, but I have a good range of experience to base this on. I have worked as the one in-house IT guy, I have run in-house teams of six staff, I have run a one-man IT services business, and today I run a fast growth medium size outsource company.

As my name is David, I like the story of David and Goliath, and I can relate it to this issue quite nicely.

David went up against a huge army led by a giant and got in one very lucky shot that ended a battle and a war. In IT the odds of one person hitting Goliath with an IT solution is significantly lower, as the war is against an industry where the rate of change is still accelerating.

No one person can cover the huge range of emerging technologies at a suitable level to know what to deploy next or how to deploy it. So there is no one stone and no suitable soft spot on the giant to hit. One person may win a battle or two, but not the war.

These days every business needs a team of IT people to ensure the breadth of focus is met, from infrastructure to security to applications to web to communications. Each SME business needs to have - a strategy for receiving and following IT related advice; IT action plans for staying ahead of the competition; IT problems never appearing in the first place, going away when they do appear and being measured to provide a basis for improvement.

We can no longer afford to focus on just one aspect of IT in any given year; we must keep many aspects improving to stay on top of our business.

If you are thinking about hiring a new internal person for any one aspect of your business, I suggest you look very closely at the benefits of outsourcing to specialists who can provide a broader range of solutions in a fraction of the time, and usually at a better cost.

• You can access hundreds of days of training for a fraction of the costs.
  
• You get the benefit of knowledge sharing that happens when a team of people working on similar issues get together regularly.
  
• You get instant access to experience gained on other similar jobs.
  
• You share the cost of skills development across all of the clients of the service provider, including the cost of developing solutions to new problems or threats.
  

Obviously you remove the gaps between full time employees as they come and go, sick leave and holidays. With an outsourced help desk you even remove the gap of a lunch break. You remove the issue of long shifts or split shifts and so much more.


David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

Should I bring forward infrastructure spending to get the 30% tax break?

If your business is turning over more than $2 million and you need a new server, then you need to act quickly before it is too late to determine what to buy.

Implementing new server infrastructure is a costly exercise, but if you purchase the asset before 30 June, you are eligible for a whopping 30% tax break.If you have a 90 day analysis cycle it may already be too late to do the analysis and get the expenditure approved.

Don't be complacent about this; if you are planning to spend over $10,000 on your server asset you need to make sure you have the solution properly designed. You need to consider storage requirements and processing power as well as software and operating system requirements.

It is also a good time to consider server consolidation through virtualisation while the larger servers meet the $10,000 asset cost requirements for the tax break.Distributors and resellers alike have reduced staff in the well published IT spending downturn, and stockists of large equipment have reduced stock to improve cashflow.

Clearly, trying to place an order at the last minute to have your equipment installed before 30 June is not a good strategy. Sure you can install it next year, but why wait for the refund for an additional 12 months if you know you need the infrastructure now.

Many firms, mine included, are running discount schemes on server hardware to attract much needed services work and to attract new clients, so there has never been a better time for making infrastructure purchases.Be warned that large purchases of desktops and laptops, while great for sub-$2 million turnover companies, are probably not going to get you the discount you are looking for.

According to Paul Wright of Mathews Steer Chartered Accountants, "while there is a lack of clarity regarding the Government's proposals at this stage, the understanding is that the tax concession is per asset, rather than a general aggregation of assets".

He also states that: "It should also be reiterated that as the legislation still hasn't been passed, and the Senate are apparently not sitting until the budget hearing, we have to continue to suggest caution in promoting the tax concession in case the Senate take an alternative view."It has been suggested to me that the Government is seeking legislation by press release rather than due process. So we are all hoping it goes through.

In Wright's words: "The extended delay between the announcement of the proposed concession, and its passing/confirmation, is not proving helpful and impeding the whole purpose of the initiative."One would think that in these pressing times with such big spending and tax cut decisions underway, there could be a special meeting of the Senate to finalise details and let business get on with plans - before it is too late to grab the tax concessions in this period. With cashflow causing issues for so many businesses, waiting 12 months for the refund does not sit well.

Wright also shares that leasing financiers are worried about the delay as they face being inundated with leasing applications just before 30 June. The reality is some applicants may miss out, not just because of the volume of applications, but because credit assessments are generally taking longer. There is therefore a lot to be said for clients gaining finance pre-approvals now, so that the finance is ready, should the legislation be passed.

To gain a pre-approval however, the financier needs to know the details of the asset being purchased, and therefore that planning still needs to be made now.This reinforces my statement about planning.

Now is the time to do the planning and design work to be ready to make the large purchasing decisions as soon as the legislation is passed mid-May, leaving just six weeks for supply and installation. So you will want to include your suppliers in the planning, won't you?


David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.

Does cloud computing mean I need to seperate hardware and software?

Cloud computing people are telling me to separate my applications from my hardware; what is that all about?

In small to medium enterprises, the temptation is to lump "IT" into a single bucket. Your IT staff, if you have them, look after your business systems, servers and PCs.

The danger with this approach in the new age of "cloud services" is that you and your people get stuck trying to work out an IT strategy that takes advantage of the idea that there is all this stuff out there in the cloud that doesn't require any infrastructure, and is therefore supposed to be cheaper.

But the reality is that it is going to be at least three to five years before every business application you need is available in the cloud and you don't need any more infrastructure of your own.

In the meantime, what do the smart companies do?

The answer lies in understanding that you, as a business owner or CIO, need to stay focused on procuring, implementing and continuously improving business systems that support every part of your business, using whatever IT applications are most appropriate for your budget and your business vision.

And for the next three to five years, the underlying infrastructure is going to be mixed. Some of your applications will need a server to live on, some of them can be hosted in a shared (virtual) or standalone environment, and some of them will be in the cloud.

And you need to have an infrastructure platform that lets you nimbly and cost effectively move from one to the other according to the needs of the applications that are supporting your business.

In the next few weeks Microsoft applications will become available as cloud-based solutions via Telstra. These should include Exchange Server, SharePoint Server and CRM.

(I would love to hear your comments on the Microsoft-Telstra hook-up, which is unique to Australia. Anywhere else where hosted Microsoft apps are available, it is done directly via Microsoft, but here in Australia I figure Microsoft lacked the infrastructure and so decided to partner up with Telstra. Good move or bad? Will you pay Telstra to access Microsoft applications?)

We now need to consider the cost and advantage of keeping these services in-house versus simply connecting.

As an example of the technical complexity thrown up here; we have not yet seen integration between Salesforce.com and a cloud exchange server. If you are already committed to Salesforce.com, you are probably better off selecting a traditional in-house exchange server or a hosted equivalent. This may change at short notice once testing of the cloud based environment is done.

In a situation where you want to use the cloud exchange solution, a short term deployment of a virtual hosted exchange server could be the key to rapid deployment with options to switch quickly once the desired service is tested and available.

This is a new age in technology, as the stuff in the cloud becomes the equivalent of the tools we have been using for years and scales down into micro businesses to give them everything their larger competitors have. In-house IT staff may struggle to keep up with the rate of change here, and may not have the advice business decision makers need.

So separate your IT infrastructure provision and outsource it. Buy what you need when you need it from experts who will maintain whatever is needed to keep your business systems running effectively.

Focus your internal IT energy (with help from experts as needed) on the applications layer - choosing the business systems that have the functionality you need and implementing business processes that make you the best business you can be.


David Markus is the founder of Melbourne's IT services company Combo. His focus is on big picture thinking to create value in IT systems for the SME sector.