How do we know if it’s time to get help with our IT system?

There are lots of reasons why IT goes to the bottom of the agenda in a small business. We often see businesses drop IT off the radar after upgrades, due to tough financial times or because of the loss of an IT employee.

Unfortunately, IT has its own way of putting itself back on the agenda. This can occur suddenly, with a malfunction costing a fortune in downtime or if your system fails to deliver the services the business requires. Worst of all, is having one incident that causes down time that can cost more than replacing the entire system properly. (You will not have this experience until you have a significant number of staff dependent on the systems to do productive work.)

If your internal IT people are too tactical, they are not going to notice the bigger picture of how the decaying systems are impacting your business. Wasting management’s time by discussing options back and forth becomes costly – particularly if the options have not been properly explored with their costs calculated.

Many IT companies in the SME arena will offer cheap technology assessments to impress prospects. This work is often a loss leader in the hope of winning projects and ongoing maintenance, and when it is done free may lead to serious oversight of your real requirements. It takes significant time to assess where you are up to and what your real needs are.

A good assessment will determine:

What you have, what you can keep and what you need to upgrade or replace to gain productivity, security and continuity of access to data.

A balanced report will also outlay the cost of ongoing maintenance of the system you will have.

In the last week we have seen a system costing $75,000 over the past 12 months to maintain. We have been able to put forward a replacement plan costing $2,500 per month to finance and another $2,600 per month to maintain that will improve productivity significantly and save the company $13,800 per annum. The new systems will streamline business functions, allow for scalability and ensure IT is performing for three to four years.

So, my advice here is:

• Don’t spend too little on the assessment.
• Get a thorough assessment of your needs to ensure you align your IT plans to your business plans.
• Then, invest in a system that will support your organisation over the next few years.

So you know it is time to get help with your IT system if you are spending the money but not getting the solutions you require or if it is showing up on management meeting agendas but there are no facts to report for options going forward.

It really is worth investing in a robust, stable system to minimise downtime and malfunctions. Aligning your IT to your business plan ensures that IT never impedes your growth, and is well worth the investment.

David Markus is the founder of Combo – the IT service company that ensures IT is never an impediment to growth. We win awards for the service we offer, so If your IT environment is slowing you down, contact Combo on 1300 726 626 to organise a complimentary consultation with David.