Proper IT Technologies: From Burden to Asset
Written By: Caitlyn Young
www.essentialdata.ca
Many small and midsized business owners are seeing IT technology as a strategy to help improve their ever growing business. These improvements include:
• Saving Money
• Saving Time
• Freeing up other resources for you and your staff
• Improving customer service
• Saves your company from a disaster (flood, fire, hacking, deletion of important files) by backing up your company’s files regularly
• Using Application Sharing , also known as Cloud Computing, to work at anytime from anywhere in the world.
The 2008 International Small Business IT Survey polled 1,361 IT decision-makers from companies of 100 employees or less. The study showed that 96 % of respondents thought IT was important to their growth, and 91% felt small business owners could benefit financially from a greater awareness of IT (International Council for Small Business. “Results of the 2008 DELL/ICSB International Small Business IT Survey”).
However if you’re still cautious to make the switch to outsourcing your company’s IT needs , think about these drawbacks that come with using the same old hardware and software or just simply trying to do upgrades your self.
• It keeps you from determining if you’re spending your IT budget wisely.
• It provides no line of sight into the benefits and ROI you’re getting from your IT investment.
• It leaves you with no reliable way of tracking user expectations and satisfaction.
• It doesn’t help you ensure that your staff is working as efficiently or productively as possible.
Merely recognizing the importance of IT for your company isn’t enough. If small and midsized companies are to get the most out of their IT investment, they need to partner with knowledgeable, reliable and experienced third-party providers that can deliver on the IT needs of smaller businesses, freeing up decision-makers to focus their time and resources on growing their business and making it more profitable.
It’s important for small and midsized business owners to visualize what their company would be like if they no longer needed to worry about their IT problems and were using 
their time more efficiently in order to make the most profit for their company.
What if:
• You worked with an IT service partner who recognized problems before you did and proactively alerted you?
• A problem occurred in the middle of the night, but the first you heard of it was when you arrived at work the next morning and read an email saying it had already been resolved?
• You had a virtual CIO (Chief Information Officer) who could advise you on all your IT-related business decisions and help you deploy technology to improve efficiency throughout your organization?
• You could accurately forecast IT costs five years into the future?
• You could work with a partner to build an IT plan that meets current business needs and provides a reliable and predictable IT infrastructure for future growth?
• You could build a road map that allows your organization to adapt to the changes of the business environment without having to make additional investments?
As a business owner your focus is building a larger clientele and becoming more profitable. Using a third party IT provider will help allow you and your staff members to achieve these goals without worrying about your IT technologies, and if they are achieving the best ROI for your company.
