I frequently work with small businesses facing IT obstacles and struggling to find the right solutions. Many of these businesses experience the same challenges, regardless of industry, and I’ve identified five common IT hurdles most small businesses will need to overcome at some point in their evolution.
1. Full-time IT staff or outsourced service provider?
When it comes to IT and a small business budget, an in-house, full-time staffer can get pretty expensive. The IT role has a historically high turnover. According to a TEK Systems survey, only 12% of IT professionals expect people to stay with their employer for more than five years. Small businesses need to decide if it’s worth the investment to hire and train a staff IT employee versus outsourcing to a service provider who excels in identifying solutions for your specific needs. By outsourcing your IT needs, you receive a detailed analysis based on your challenges and goals, and a tailored strategy to help you maximize your goals. Outside service providers are on call and work with you one on one to ensure that your small business is ahead of the game. Outsourced IT providers also don’t take PTO days — potentially leaving your business unprotected — and can be kept under contract to ensure performance.
Here are five important questions to ask an outside service provider:
- Can you take me through your onboarding and documentation process?
- What vendors and products are you aligned with (e.g., Dell, HP, Microsoft, Cisco, Trend Micro)?
- Do you have relationships with local reps at each company?
- Who are some of your best clients and why?
- Can you walk me through the process of getting help for both urgent and non-urgent issues?
Does your business have an IT staff member who is doing commodity work? Perhaps your business is large enough to demand on onsite person. Are they working on strategic and valuable work or stuck just doing basic help desk issues?
Outsourcing can be used to augment your existing staff by bringing in one-time expertise or taking the overflow and backing up your existing resource. A good IT partner can help ensure optimal IT performance and show your IT staff that you support them and know that they cannot do everything or have expertise in everything.
2. Lost in (technology) translation
As a business owner, it is vital that you understand and use advanced technologies. Technology can help increase business efficiency and even expand operations. But dissecting the options and choosing the right vendors, software, and services that make the most sense for your needs can make your head spin. Microsoft, Cisco, HP, and a plethora of hardware and software vendors are constantly knocking on your door, selling the latest and the greatest solutions. It is important that you understand the things that you really need to run your business. An outside consultant can break it down for you and provide invaluable information about vetted vendors and “just the right size” solutions for a small business. By removing the “language barrier” that sometimes is technology talk, this type of personalized service will help you stay focused on the bigger goals and feel confident that you are in good hands with the solutions that you need to further your business.
3. Protecting your business from security threats
The stats and facts surrounding security threats to small business are astounding. The average virus infects a network for 146 days before it is detected. In 2015, the average cost of a security breach was $1.57 million (more info here). McAfee or another anti-virus service alone is not enough to protect your business.
After installing a proper firewall and anti-virus software, the very next step to protecting your small business from an expensive attack is to educate your employees. Your weakest link is often the people answering phones and opening emails. Here are two things that you can do to help with this. First is education. Do phishing tests to measure your current vulnerability to threats. Then teach your users what type of threats are out there and what they typically look like, as well as information that is never safe to give out over the phone or email. Second is creating corporate policy for security that outlines rules for password management, mobile device usage, file sharing, etc.
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4. Budgeting for technology
How can small businesses best strategically plan for technology needs in the coming year? A trusted and experienced advisor can help you forecast your technical needs based on your projected growth or necessary upgrades. There is no great rule of thumb for a typical technology budget. It will be very customized to your business. Even the same size business in the same industry will be different based on its technology foundation.
Here are six steps to mapping out your budget for the coming year:
- Clearly define the technology goal(s) for the coming year, such as support a whole scale business change, reduce IT costs by 10%, and deliver 99.99% uptime. Without a goal, there is no measure of success and you’ll be building the budget with no ability to see if you were successful or not.
- Strategically determine which technology changes will best support the goal(s). Start with the ideal business outcomes (not technical outcomes) and build your technical solutions to meet it.
- Decide what projects need to be prioritized to support your strategy.
- Estimate the costs of each project, including equipment, labor, and services.
- Gather all your recurring costs (e.g., copiers, phone/IT support, internet, software maintenance, etc.) and add 5%–7% to them.
- Add 10% for “unknowns.”
5. To the cloud or not to the cloud?
Adoption of the cloud for enterprise businesses is staggering, but most small businesses have not yet embraced what it can offer on a smaller scale. Email in the cloud is the top way small businesses are moving to the cloud. Not far behind is cloud usage for backup/disaster recovery and primary software applications. Think QuickBooks or Adobe Creative Suite in the cloud, instead of installed locally to your laptop. What does this mean for you? More storage for your device and a secure backup if your device ever gets lost, stolen, or destroyed.
What makes a “small move” to the cloud very much depends on the business type and the owner’s preferences, budget, and needs. It is important to consider the size and goals of the business from both server and software standpoints.
The baby step to moving toward the cloud is migrating email to Office 365. For email for a single cloud user the license is $8, or $20 for the whole Microsoft Office suite (Word, Excel, PowerPoint, etc.). Additional small steps to the cloud include replacing your current software tools with cloud tools. For example, each of these solutions are available in the cloud instead of standalone licenses: QuickBooks, HR software, Adobe Creative Suite, any kind of analytics tool for business intelligence (GoodData, Birst, SQL, Power BI), or Sharepoint.
Here are three important issues to consider:
- No more hardware. Is your primary business IT or is it the products and services you’re providing? One major way you can take a step forward is to step back from non-core functions like buying, installing, and maintaining “IT stuff.” Instead, using cloud servers can help you have predictable costs without the constant need for lifting and replacing hardware.
- Scalability. When you put a server in the cloud, you only pay for usage when it is running. Let’s say you have a cyclical business, like accounting, construction, or Ellie’s Ice Cream Truck. For the six to nine months out of the year when you don’t need those servers running, they can be turned off. When you tell Azure, “Turn these servers off,” you won’t be charged for them. When you need them again, turn them back on for as long as you need.
- Flexibility. Launching a new product? Have cyclical e-commerce? You’ll most likely need to spin up additional servers or bandwidth in a hurry. Cloud technology allows you to quickly set up and get going.
Paul Hager is CEO and president of Information Technology Professionals (ITP), which works with small and medium sized businesses in Wisconsin to help them achieve their strategic business goals through the use of information technology — specializing in legal, health care, non-profit, hospitality, K-12 education.
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