I work at an It retain firm that provides It retain for small to medium sized businesses. I'm on the train on my way to see a prospective firm It retain client right now with a detailed It retain Audit record in my bag.
The record has some bad news for them. Nothing unusual there, but the nature of the bad news is entirely avoidable and might surprise you! Let me explain.
Business It retain Audit
Like many It retain companies we all the time undertake an It retain Audit before we accept a new firm as a firm It retain Client. We charge our clients a fixed monthly It retain fee so we need to know what we're getting into otherwise we could lose a lot of money.
The It retain Audit has highlighted a tasteless problem. I'm tempted to say they have been tricked, but that implies deliberate action. In reality they have been misled rather than deliberately tricked by their It retain firm into spending too much on their computer system. Yes - too much!
That may sound more like a waste of money than a primary It retain problem, but it is a primary It retain problem. Here's why.
It retain Complexity
They are a firm of about 20 people, with a computer infrastructure sufficiently involved for a small bank. I exaggerate, but not that much.
Their requirements are literally simple, but they have 2 servers, one of which is a very high specification. Between the 2 servers they control 5 dissimilar virtual servers and 3 dissimilar operating systems. Plus they have got a very sophisticated (read costly and overly complex) Cisco networking infrastructure.
Based on advice from their It retain firm they spent over 20 thousand upgrading their systems a matter of months ago. They find that ongoing It retain costs are high as well. Changes or fixes are very expensive. I'm not surprised. It's a involved setup requiring a great deal of time and technical expertise to implement changes or It retain fixes, to say nothing of the unnecessary firm disruption involved.
In short, high factory costs and high ongoing It retain costs. And all of it unnecessary.
A simple, elegant (and cheaper) It retain Solution
It's a simple firm so all they literally need is a singular Microsoft Sbs server, a Draytek router and a few Netgear switches. This clarification would have cut their preliminary costs by 10 thousand and their ongoing costs by approximately 7 thousand per annum. They could have done with that money. Unfortunately they have just been forced to make some staff redundant.
Elegantly simple and approved engineering is something that few It retain companies seem to understand. I see similar bad engineering on a quarterly basis. It literally annoys me. Not only is it expensive, but it's sloppy, lazy work by the It retain Company. Of course that's easy for me to say. After all I've been doing this for 20 years. As a firm owner without It retain expertise how can you avoid these costly errors?
3 basic firm tests you should apply when hiring a new firm It retain Company
- Get at least 3 It retain quotes. This sounds basic, but so few companies do it. I make this a course throughout my firm when we are purchasing any new service. I know it's time-consuming, but it's worth the effort.
- Ask "stupid" questions! Don't be afraid to ask. You are the customer. If they can't rejoinder it in a way that you can understand then move onto other more customer assistance centric firm It retain Company.
- Select an It retain firm that specialises in your size of business. If you are a small firm and they retain firm clients that doesn't make them better for you. It literally makes them worse for you. They will try to shoehorn their firm technology into your small firm - it's costly and finally it won't work.
By the time you read this record I will have given the prospective Business It Support client the bad news. For their long term advantage they need to undo some of the recent, costly over engineering. It's a difficult pill to swallow. I wonder how they will react!
One Of The Most costly company It withhold Mistakes I See roughly Every Week And How To Avoid ItLoan to Value Ratio Definition Basic Stamp 2 Module Homemade Frozen Yogurt Recipe