Technology should work. When technology doesn’t work – it’s a pain. There’s a basic calculation that you have to do in your head to rationalize how much pain you can handle before you’re ready to do something about it. It’s directly related to budget. If you have no budget, you have to deal with more pain. People put off doing something about their technology for a long time, sometimes. They deal with old computers, slow internet, network outages, lagging servers and internet service that isn’t up to par. They troubleshoot on their own, they Dr. Google their IT issues and they bandaid things. They only pay for technology when it’s absolutely broken. This reactive approach is handicapping business and that’s putting it lightly. When your users are unproductive, they can’t make you money. So they’re effectively just being paid to sit there. If I can be 100% honest with you right now, I think that’s ridiculous. You might not. You might think that paying hundreds or thousands a month for Managed Services is more ridiculous. If that’s the case, there are a few things that you’re telling me. Here’s what you’re saying when you’re saying it isn’t worth the investment, or more appropriately, stuff no one says about their business technology:
- I love sitting on the phone with my ISP to troubleshoot internet.
Hey, I don’t know you. Maybe you enjoy talking to people in other countries in your spare time. But not most people. Most people would rather make one call to an organization that they trust and let them deal with it. Managed Services providers have a dedicated point of contact at each ISP that manages all their accounts and can easily update and provide information about outages in the area or other issues. But if you’d rather sit on the phone with “Tommy”, we can’t judge you for that. That’s your prerogative.
- My favorite part of tech support is waiting 3 hours for our technician to get to my request.
Score! “Help Desk” (which, lets face it, for some businesses is just a few overloaded guys tripping over themselves trying to support 50+ users) is overwhelmed. They’re setting up new workstations and responding to requests. They have no central ticketing system because you didn’t want to invest the tens of thousands into a ticketing system. Who needs to manage tickets when your users can just hang out and play Candy Crush on their phones? Productivity? Meh. We’ll do it tomorrow… if Help Desk gets to it. If not… maybe Monday. No one should have to wait that long for response from their support technicians. Period.
- I like to play the odds and hope that my servers don’t crash and my data is recoverable.
This is utter insanity. But truly, some businesses don’t back up their data reliably. They don’t even know if their backed up data is actually viable. So all their staff that is working every day, costing them thousands or hundreds of thousands over the course of their tenure could be working for no reason. Because when that server crashes, all of that data could be lost, unless forensics can recover it. Cross your fingers. It’s like Vegas, but with way crappier odds.
- My favorite part of my 8 year old workstation is that I get to eat my lunch while I’m waiting for programs to load.
No one says that. I can’t even pretend that your employees like slow workstations, because it’s a total lie. Your employees hate your old workstations. They want to pull an Office Space and take them out back with a baseball bat, but they know that you won’t replace them, so they just deal with it. They’re completely unproductive and pretty miserable. Happy employees get things done, they don’t sit there waiting for programs to load on their 2006 desktop. You have to upgrade your workstations regularly and have a plan in place – or you’re going to lose great employees that are seeking out a more innovative business.
Neglecting your business technology isn’t sustainable. When you don’t have to deal with issues, you don’t realize what you’re missing out on – but when you do, it’s pretty rough. You’ve spent enough time in the server room resetting your own modem on the phone with “Tommy” from your Internet Service Provider. Enough is enough. Get a strategy together, set a budget and start working with a reputable Managed Services provider with the right tools that you can hold accountable. Then all of this pain just goes away. It’s like Tylenol for business, only way better.
Just Do It Already: Why you need to Nike your IT Strategy
