Can we just back up to Google?

The answer is "almost", in that there are a number of cloud-based backup solutions that work really well for PCs. By this, I mean that there are now businesses that offer storage of your data files across the internet, as a backup to your PC hard drive.

And, there are some clear benefits to this kind of cloud-based, offsite backup:

• Regular updates.
• More than one version can be recovered.
• Distance between the two data sets adds protection from environmental hazards.
• Speed of small file recovery can be momentary, as downloads of small files are fast (ie. Faster than switching tapes to find the right version).
• Processes can be automated to remove risk of human failure (eg. Changing tapes).
• Processes can be checked by a remote manager to ensure collected data is sound.
• Off-site data can be replicated to an additional location for further protection from loss.
• Off-site data can be encrypted for security, rather than left accessible on tapes or hard drives.
• Costs are coming down as competition grows, and storage gets cheaper.
• Associated software is continuing to improve.

We use cloud-based backup at home, and so should you. In fact, if you run a micro-business, this kind of backup solution is probably ideal. I'm sure, for example, that the people in Marysville who had data at work, backup at home, and a copy at the local accountants, all wish they had used cloud-based backup to protect their files.

The good news is that the storage is pretty cheap. The bad news is that you may blow your data limit for a month or two, sending your data up to the cloud.
If you are considering a cloud-based solution, you should:

• Check your data limits with your internet provider.
• Check how much data is going to be replicated or moved.
• Ensure you remain within your limits, or increase them for a month with your provider.
• Ensure you do not pay for any excess data on your plan.
• Monitor the progress of the upload.
• Possibly start close to the end of a billing cycle if you have a shaped plan.

The bad news is that this does not work very well if you run a business with significant amounts of data. When a client asked me this question last week, we did the sums and it would literally have taken all of their bandwidth at peak load for over four months to complete the upload of their data archives.

There is a solution for larger clients though, which involves a two-step process set up by specialist firms who handle cloud-based or online backup solutions. This involves taking a base image on hard drives that is transferred physically to the off-site data store, and then only replicating the daily changes to the files.

If you're considering this kind of solution, seek advice and ensure there are good agreements in place to protect your business. And make sure you're dealing with a reputable company, as there are some backyard companies and IT consultants out there claiming to offer this service, but failing to put real solutions in place.

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

Why is my IT guy giving me excuses?

I think it's safe to say that the vast majority of people don't enjoy going to the dentist. I'm one of those people. But, what I enjoy even LESS than going to the dentist, is feeling like I AM the dentist. When do I feel like a dentist? When I visit small businesses, and see poor abused business owners fretting that I'm about to deliver bad news that will lead to a lot of pain. It's not pleasant for me, or them.

So, why do small business owners feel this amount of dread? I think it's because there are so many poor practitioners in the SME IT space that consistently give poor service and poor advice, both of which lead to expensive solutions, that the poor business owners out there are simply afraid to ask for help.

Excuses are just one symptom of poor service, and range from:

• "Sorry, I can't make it out there for a couple of days because I'm busy (on the golf course)";
  
• "Oh no, you can't use that technology – you will need to buy a new one"; an
• "Yes, we can do that – but it will take six months to deploy."

If you are getting excuses like these, and don't feel they are justified, it is time to look at the quality of the relationship you have with your IT company – and the capabilities of that company. The excuses you're getting should give you a good clue as to the company's capabilities. Worth noting here is the fact that sometimes it's the external IT guy, or even the in-house IT person, that will feed you excuses. Either way, it's time to reexamine your choice of service provider.

Out of fairness, IT is complex and some of the excuses may actually be good valid business reasons, based in science and technology. But, I do want to let you know a bit about what goes on behind the scenes. So, here come my excuses...

Before I start though, if the service you are getting shows that your IT solution is not handling the following issues to a standard that meets your requirements, I would like to assure you that there are other providers out there who will meet – and even exceed – your expectations. I wish that I could point you to a register of those companies, but unfortunately I'm not aware of any such register.

Back to those excuses though... IT companies have a lot of issues to manage, including: staff levels, technical training and capabilities, queue management and resource planning. Smaller IT companies have only a few technicians, and will use the same people for routine maintenance, break fix work, and projects.

This can lead to having all staff deployed, and none left to field an urgent requirement, or having certain skills contained in individuals who are needed on more than one job at a time. Rarely does a customer order an IT project weeks before they need it run to allow the IT company to allocate their hours appropriately.

So, if you are calling today to order the project that was quoted weeks or months ago, you may expect a stream of excuses on delivery time to follow the "Thanks for the order".

There are, of course, also some very large players in the IT game who control the supply chain, and we are yet to see them correctly predict stock levels for small business equipment in May, June or December. So, there can be real delays in accessing the equipment required. Stock levels are kept to a minimum, as the products have a shelf life of six weeks before a new model is released. Therefore, planning your orders before you need them is essential.

Specialist skills reduce the amount of time it takes to run a project. If the technology specialist is deployed on a large project for days or weeks, using a substitute may get the job done – but may take up to four times longer as the skilled (but undertrained) technician learns on the job. In IT, pressing a button only takes a few seconds, but learning which buttons to press and in which order, can take years of accumulated knowledge and thousands of dollars worth of training. Deploying a good PC technician to set up a new server in a couple of days is probably not going to get you the results you are hoping for. Using a server tech who did one last week, and one the week before, will give you a more predictable outcome – and less excuses.

So, to some extent, we get the excuses we deserve when we either ask for unreasonable things, or allow bad relationships to continue.

To get to a place where you can trust the advice you are given, and not feel like you're receiving a bunch of excuses, you need to:

• Be realistic about who you need, and what you need;
• Enter into a relationship with the right people, with the right capabilities; and then
• Ensure they will be accountable for the work they take on.

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

What are the emerging IT trends? What are we potentially missing out on?

I get this question a lot from people who are anxious that they are not getting the benefits they should be from IT. The mindset out there is that technology is advancing so quickly that there might be a new solution to an old problem that will really make the difference in our businesses.

I am afraid that my reaction is to say: "Wake up Australian business owners – this country is falling behind in taking advantage of productivity tools and technology that have been around for years!" As a nation, we seem to be so afraid of investing in technology that we are persisting with tools that could be updated for a relatively small spend, relative to our salary bills.

Among the many exciting technology advancements taking place, there are some great things happening with Virtual PCs that may be of interest to some of the larger businesses with a distributed workforce – especially with Citrix releasing its new XenApp 6 about now. This technology promises to simplify the desktop virtualisation model in a number of interesting ways, moving the choice of five solutions down to a one solution fits all model. This will make desktop virtualisation an affordable reality for much smaller organisations.

Of course, we could grab this technology and try to find a business problem to solve with it, investing a lot of money on training our IT staff, buying equipment and licensing. Or, we could do some analysis of our business, figure out what tools the business needs and invest in those.

In the SME space, we are being very slow to adopt some of the following technologies that would give our business significant benefit:

• Sales automation
• Marketing automation
• Information management
• HR management
• Process and financial management (ERP)

These solutions help us to:

• Bring in work more effectively.
• Automate mundane tasks so they happen reliably and produce dependable results.
• Structure our data so we can manage it and report on it effectively.
• Manage our staff with well-structured company-wide objectives.
• Keep track of our stock and other resources.
• Reduce waste and drive better processes.

Part of the problem is that many owners of SME businesses simply don't have time to get out any more. Trade show attendee numbers are on the decline, and it is harder than ever to get people to attend events. Direct mail and email marketing has been overdone, so it is very hard to catch the attention of a business leader to introduce a new idea (or technology).

Of course, there are risks to implementing new solutions too, and I don't want to gloss over those. A new system will cost a lot of money, and may not provide any benefit. Or, the implementation may go badly and just add expense to solving the business problem. And then, a new technology may emerge just around the corner that is better than the one you've just implemented; making the one installed a complete waste of time and resources. Or, your business may need to change direction in a way the new solution does not support, making the business less flexible rather than more productive.

Therefore, the quality of the business analysis done before investing is key to your upgrade. I see a lot of businesses hiring a business mentor to assist with driving profitability or growth, but I do not see business mentors helping create IT systems for productivity. As a result, there is a huge opportunity in our SME business community for business analysts to step in and help build productive businesses for the next decade. If there are any analysts out there focused on the 15 to 150 seat space, I would love to hear from you.

So, the missing element may well be the team of roving CIOs for organisations too small to employ a full-time CIO.

I hope the emerging trend is to stop looking at new technology, and instead look internally at the business issues. Once the business issues have been identified, ask the people who work with technology every day across multiple industries to resolve those issues with the best available technology. And, as always, it is important to build a relationship with an advisor you can trust.

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

Whose problem should the resolution of complex IT issues be?

Whose problem should the resolution of complex IT issues be? The buck seems to keep being passed.

I think in any aspect of business, decisions often get put off, and issues are never resolved if a solution is unknown or poorly presented to management. IT is no different, and often management fails to make a decision because the solution available just doesn't feel right.

In my experience, more often than not a non-technical management team will avoid making decisions until confronted with a disaster – think: a security breach, loss of data, or an inability to deliver or communicate because the technical people they are dealing with have simply failed to convey the need to resolve the issue before the symptoms present.

By this, I don't mean that technical people say nothing. It's just that what they say is very technical, and possibly lacks clarity due to their own confusion, or lack of conviction on the topic. As a result, the message is not well received.

Recently, I saw a business with turnover exceeding $100 million fail to implement a backup system, because the technician they employed was unable to communicate the importance of the project, and could not explain the technology to a point where it became apparent that a system was required. Their systems continued to be functional and so the need just never came up as being mission-critical, and worthy of expenditure.

This problem comes back to the business plan, and aligning IT to that plan. If there is no one on the business leadership team who has an understanding of IT, it may be worth finding a board-level advisor who can bring the knowledge required into the business to ensure the right plans are made, the right budgets assigned and the right projects initiated.

If your IT staff or contractors are all tactical people or inexperienced in IT management concepts, then it is clearly not appropriate to expect them to resolve complex issues and make business-leading decisions where large amounts of money are concerned. Some more complex problems may require a component of project management to be delivered with any success. This is because tactical IT people often lack any ability to plan or deliver to a plan.

So, how can you ensure that the buck stops on resolving complex problems? Follow these 10 steps:

1. Ensure the problem has both a management level sponsor and a tactical team member associated with the resolution.
2. Make sure the resolution of the problem is aligned to the business plan.
3. If your internal staff lack clarity or conviction on the solution, seek external advice.
4. Ensure the proposed solution is sensible before you waste a lot of money on the wrong solution.
5. Draft a resolution plan.
6. Consider calling for fixed-price quotes based on delivering defined outcomes
7. Ensure sufficient funds are budgeted.
8. Activate the plan.
9. Manage the project.
10. Measure the outcomes.

Until you take the resolution of issues seriously, it is likely that you will:

• Underestimate the importance of solving the problem;
• Underestimate the activity required;
• Under invest and get poor results (which may be used as an ongoing excuse for not investing in the first place); and
• Fail to achieve the outcomes that allow your business to grow.

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