Editorial
Why Hire a Professional IT Company
to Help Your Business?
by David Merkin
As a small to medium-sized businesses owner, many
questions come to mind when thinking about how to
implement technology that is essential to your
business. You may have thought about hiring a
technology company but did not because you
assumed such a service could be performed on your
own. For example, you may currently have a friend
working full-time that helps you out, or you may have
an administrative assistant or another employee that
dabbles in technology to help around the office. Other
options include buying your own equipment, plugging
in the computer, and hoping it works.
This may work for some, but if you want to get the
most out of your technology, you need a professional
to handle such critical equipment just like any other
professional services company. For example, you
would probably not hire an inexperienced college
student to prepare your taxes and file tax returns for
your business. You would hire a professional tax
preparer or CPA, right?
Small and medium-sized businesses can get the most
out of their technology by understanding what the
most critical aspect of their business is. They need to
break down all the important parts of their technology
and ask themselves, “What if that piece of technology
was not available to me at the most critical time of
my business?”
Would clients be impacted?
Would employees not be able to do all or part of their work?
Would the business owner lose money?
Would the business owner lose clients?
Is the business owner's reputation on the line?
For example, I met a prospect who told me his
backups have been running for eight years; he gets
daily email alerts about whether those backups
succeeded or failed. When we checked the backups,
they were only backing up the “application” directory
and not the “data.” For eight years, he thought his
backups were working — and technically they were —
but they were not backing up his actual data. When I
told him this, he realized he could have lost all his
data, putting his business and clients at risk.
Having a professional IT company can also help
you determine what's necessary for your company.
Business owners know they will need a computer or
a laptop, but they may not realize they can benefit
from certain technology like a server or firewall, or
that they can recover important emails even i