Computers, What an IT Company should be providing you with
I have seen over the years that the companies realising that one has to invest in IT to drive the company forward are the ones that show continued stability and growth. A Professionally designed website that allows the user to interact with the company, a solid and reliable IT infrastructure that ensures staff are accessing information efficiently and effectively, an application that will allow access to information and complete Customer Relationship Management. All the aforementioned are strategic steps that help make organisations more efficient and assist in increasing market presence.
The IT industry is saturated with companies offering their services, but what makes an efficient and effective IT partner and will they be the driving force to align your IT with your business plan, forecasts and visions? I have had extensive involvement in a large number of companies that had IT partners who generally provided a reactive service; if your computer is broken, we will respond and fix it. Even response times are generally too long. Most companies offer Service Level Agreements of 4 hours, this is far too long. An efficient IT Partner should offer standard response times of 60 minutes and for critical issues such as a server crashing the response time should be 10-15 minutes.
Another major factor of IT Efficiency is Cost. Do I go for a pay-as-you-go service that will not cost the earth or do I go for a pro-active support solution that will guarantee that my IT will move forward with my company? The answer to this question may seem to be down to cost however it shouldn't be. The answer to this question is within another question; How much do I value my IT and do I really want to move forward? Let me explain, if as a Director you can appreciate the power of the Internet and the power of IT you will always want to have a pro-active IT partner in place. Such a Partner will monitor the Infrastructure on a daily basis, ensure that backups and virus updates have been completed successfully. They will be heavily involved in the IT strategy of the organisation, and will continuously look at technologies that will assist you in not only being efficient & effective but to provide added value. Ask yourself this question, do you want to have to call your IT partner to tell them that your server has crashed and no-one can work or do you want them to know that it crashed and get onto the problem before you can even pick up the phone? Having to call is a reactive IT partner, knowing it crashed is a semi pro-active partner. Is there another higher level? Of course, IT partners that have monitoring systems in place that flag any major or minor issues on their systems is the highest level. Generally small minor problems or errors can grow into major problems such as server crashes, email systems failing etc. The highest level of pro-active support is to use these monitoring systems to resolve issues before they become critical errors. As a business owner/director, do you spend the extra to ensure that you have a fully pro-active IT Partner? Of course you should.
Lets go one step further, the level of IT Support is now fully Pro-Active, but we have another problem. IT Partner A looks after your Servers PCs and Printers, IT Partner B looks after your website or eCommerce, Partner C looks after your Telephony system and Partner D looks after your applications. I am sure that if the above is the case you will have experienced situations where IT Partner A says that the fault described is nothing to do with them and to call IT Partner D, Partner D then says it is nothing to do with them and you should call IT Partner A or B. You are probably nodding your head and raising one eyebrow.
So we have high levels of pro-active support from all the IT Partners however we are now in a pass-the-buck situation. I can list dozens of cases and examples where I have personally seen and experienced this scenario and I have to say it is incredibly frustrating when the IT system is down. Equally as frustrating, you will be drawn into these situations trying to mange all the IT companies and trying to get one of them to take ownership so that your company can start operating efficiently again. After all not only are you acting as headmaster or referee but your staff are sitting at their desks with no IT system. You are losing money in more than one area.
What can you do about it? Are there IT partners around that are true one-stop-solution providers? Are they any good? Can they be experts in all areas of IT? These kinds of companies are sparse however they do exist. Many companies claim to provide a one-stop-shop but if you look at their website and talk to them you will quickly see that they are not as one-stop as you may think.
How do you know that an IT Partner is a true one-stop-solution provider? Look at their services and see whether they offer everything that you would classify as IT. Do they provide consultancy and support, offer websites, develop applications, provide CRM systems, Telephony systems, pro active monitoring, Digital CCTV, Remote access, Asset Management, Presentation systems such as Plasma displays and Interactive Whiteboards. A more relevant question would be "Do I have anything IT related within my organisation that they would not be able to deal with?
In addition to offering all the above, a true one-stop-solution provider should have vendor partnerships in place to ensure an extra level of customer protection. If a Windows Server issue cannot be resolved, do they have the support in place to get assistance from Microsoft? Are they partners? Better still are they Gold Partners? Do they only have one or two vendor partnerships or are they partners with several vendors? This is normally a good indication of the level of an IT Partner as these partnerships are monitored and guidelines are in place to ensure quality.
From over 18 years experience in the IT industry and working with many companies ranging in size from 5 users to over 7,000 it is clear that the IT in an organisation is generally seen as important. However the level of importance is the sticking point especially when costs are involved. Too many directors/managers see the figures on a proposal and instantly dismiss them. The directors that have a true understanding of the value of IT look at the figures and see how that quotation will save them x amount of staff time on IT failures, x amount of extra revenue in selling their products online, x amount of staff time saved with fully integrated systems. Once the proposal is seen in this light it becomes clearer and more obvious that this is the way forward and needless to say with an IT Partner that will be Pro Active rather that Reactive.
About the Author: IT expert Tas Georgopoulos looks at how the type of IT support and consultancy services can assist businesses.
Related Tags: maintenance, outsourcing, consultancy, it support
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