You’ve heard the cliché: “The greater the risk, the greater the reward.” While that is a popular creed among venture capitalists and entrepreneurial businesses, most presidents and CEOs of small businesses prefer a sound program for managing capital expenditures, one that balances the fiscal risk of investment in business technology with a safe ROI.
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Topics:
Small Business IT Resources,
small business IT infrastructure,
IT Management,
Capital managemet
How many business owners are familiar with the intricacies of small business IT infrastructure? Many business owners understand the results they want, but they don't have the time to properly analyze their IT infrastructure. They set their focus on business growth and relationship development, often ignoring the risks associated with having poor IT services.
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Topics:
Small Business IT Resources,
small business it support,
IT Managed Services,
small business IT infrastructure
There is a common misconception among small business IT support professionals about solving IT problems. Many believe that they can fix any issue by identifying which hardware or software is out of date and then update it, or if they’re not virtualized, they just go to the cloud. The reality is that these quick fixes only address the symptoms of a problem, not the root cause. To truly solve an IT problem, it’s important to put proactive planning methods into action.
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Topics:
Small Business IT Resources,
small business it support,
IT best practices,
IT Strategy
Poor IT management can cost a company far more than the physical cost of maintaining IT services. It can impact and affect several areas of the company from payroll to human resources. I have been working in IT for many years and have seen the IT business structure become reliant on reactive, instead of proactive, solutions. These are certainly not my ideas alone, but I have seen enough to believe that the problem is wide spread throughout many businesses.
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Topics:
Small Business IT Resources,
IT Managed Services,
virtual CIO,
IT Management
What makes one IT managed services company stand out from the other 186,000 IT managed services companies?
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Topics:
Small Business IT Resources,
IT Managed Services,
IT services guide
In many ways, martial arts can be an appropriate metaphor for running a business. For example, there are probably hundreds of thousands of entry-level martial arts studios available for beginning students. It doesn’t really matter what martial art you decide to study, only that you get started and learn whether the art is right for you. However, as you grow in ability and dedication, you find that your needs sharpen and you need a higher level of expertise to guide you along the right path. You need a master.
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Topics:
Small Business IT Resources,
VCIO,
virtual CIO,
IT Strategy
I was talking to a business owner the other day who asked me “If I’m in the cloud, what do I need IT services for?” Inwardly, I groaned, because this is a question I’m hearing more often these days – and it represents a misunderstanding about the ‘magic’ of cloud services. The cloud is powerful, and has the ability to save companies thousands of dollars on things like the upkeep of a data center, but ultimately it’s just another deployment model. A deployment model with its own set of challenges, risks and questions that need answering.
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Topics:
Managed IT Services,
IT Managed Services,
virtual CIO,
IT best practices,
IT Strategy,
cloud services,
IT services guide
Small business IT support is typically an afterthought for most owners and/or executives of organizations with under fifty employees. In some cases the owner is involved in support herself. In others, a key employee has this responsibility in addition to another important role. Occassionally, there is a dedicated employee for this activity, but at this size, it is usually hard to justify. In most cases, the company avails itself of a reactive break-fix IT services company. The problem is that reactive support yields sub-optimal results.
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Topics:
Small Business IT Resources,
IT Managed Services
IT managed services are not new, but most small business owners still do not really know what they are. Following are five case studies that describe how technology impacts business results and the role of IT managed services in improving those results.
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Topics:
IT Managed Services,
IT Strategy