Once upon a time, a small business could conceivably make it relying on amateur or semi-professional technical support. This is no longer the case.
Nowadays, business IT is so crucial that a professional touch is a hard requirement for success… for reasons you may not initially consider.
Let’s explore why it is that trusting an amateur to wrangle your business’ tech is a risky proposition, and compare it to the alternative of hiring professional IT support.
This is one of those long-term equations that is important to consider as time goes on. Let’s say that fixing Issue A takes about five minutes, whereas an hour’s work could mitigate Issue A entirely. While five minutes here and there may not seem like much, if Issue A regularly appears—say, 19 or so times a week—it quickly becomes a greater drain to fix it each time than it would take to just eliminate the problem.
In our 19 times a week example, for instance, you’re investing just over an hour and a half just to fix the problem every seven days, whereas a single hour could prevent you from ever having to deal with it again.
The issue really is one of economics. The provider you call in for a la carte work simply isn’t going to be motivated to permanently solve the problem, as that’s counterproductive to their business model… assuming they have the necessary expertise to do so at all. They also won’t be there all the time to monitor your systems, so any assistance they provide will inherently be reactive, allowing serious issues to be missed.
In this scenario, a backdoor into your network could go unnoticed if your server seems to be working just fine.
IT issues don’t care about your IT guy’s availability; they’ll take root and cause problems regardless of whether your resource is out sick, enjoying their vacation, or dealing with a separate, unrelated IT issue. This conundrum is exacerbated by a single point of failure—there’s only one guardrail to prevent things from hitting the fan.
If only one person on your team understands how your network is configured, you had better hope that they stick around… or that nothing happens to them. What if your network takes a nosedive at 2 a.m.? Hopefully, your IT professional wakes up ready to go.
If nothing else, it is unfair to expect a single member of your team to take complete responsibility for a key element of your business 24/7. Operationally, it is incredibly limiting… and that isn’t even the worst of it.
Modern businesses should be utilizing a pretty diverse tech stack, from backup and disaster recovery precautions to multi-factor authentication to Voice over Internet Protocol (and this is far from a comprehensive list). This is more than a lone technician can handle… especially without a certain level of expertise across a company’s entire tech stack, ongoing professional relationships with reputable vendors, or the certifications needed to ensure compliance and meet insurance requirements.
However, First Column IT can provide all of this and more.
Today’s businesses, including those in Northern Virginia, need a professional presence involved in their technology management. We can be there to help. Give us a call at (571) 470-5594 to get started.
