As I left the office tonight, an intense band of thunder storms was moving quickly across Northern Mass/ Southern NH. The handful of fat but lazy raindrops that were falling as I crossed the parking lot had, by the time I reached the highway, turned into sheets of rain which were punctuated periodically by the flashing of lightning. To make matters worse, I had to stop and run an errand. Getting soaked in the process, seemed inevitable.
The rain hadn’t slowed as I stepped out of my car. Upon entering the store, while I made my way towards the back of the store, there was a sudden brown out. Power was never fully lost, but the lights dimmed and flickered for 2 or 3 seconds. Upon making my selections and heading to the counter, it became very clear that I wasn’t going anywhere.
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Click here to read “IT Budgeting for Small Businesses (Part I)”
“Penny-Wise, Pound Foolish” is never the right approach to budgeting. A few phrases we hear in the business world are Return on Investment (ROI) and Total Cost of Ownership (TCO). These phrases should ring true to anyone making a technology decision. This type of analysis should be done for investments in all facets of technology including new technologies, core infrastructure replacement and end user/general maintenance.
It has been my experience that businesses do an excellent job on finding the ROI/TCO for new technologies they will introduce or major server upgrades. However, they often overlook the smaller pieces of technology in their environment. Here are several things that your business may want to consider:
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What is the life expectancy of my server?…
Clients often ask me that question. More often than not, I find myself answering – What types of applications do you plan on running? And how important are these applications to your organization?
As you probably have guessed, email is typically one of the most critical systems to small and medium-sized businesses. Yet it amazes me that while many companies try to squeak four and five years out of their server hardware, they are reluctant to keep that equipment under warranty beyond the original three years that came with it. I’ve heard clients tell me things like “well, it’s been fine for the past three years so it should continue to run normally” or “buying a warranty on an older piece of hardware isn’t worth the money.”
Every time I hear one of those excuses, it makes me cringe. Here’s the reality of the situation…
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Virtual Private Networks (VPNs) are not the latest and greatest technology out there. In fact, they were first seen in the late 80′s as a means to carry private information across the public network. Today, VPN is primarily used by organizations to securely connect remote employees to internal applications, such as email or file servers. Like all technology, VPN has evolved over time and now offers different methods of connecting remote employees.
So, how does one decide which solution will best fit their needs?
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In the news recently there has been talk of the new price war between Amazon’s “Kindle” and the Barnes & Noble “Nook”. It’s always interesting how fast pricing on technology products drop based on competition and/or innovation. I suspect the pricing on the “Kindle” and the “Nook” will drop even further by the holiday season because ultimately these products are just vehicles for Amazon and Barnes & Noble to sell more of their core product…..books.
This is just one of the differences between products and services.
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In the IT industry, buzz words and trends come and go with alarming frequency. On occasion, a trend will come along with the staying power to reshape our thinking. It’s difficult today to read any tech industry news without hearing about “clouds” or virtualization. The ambiguous and often interchangeable definition of these terms can often be a source of confusion for IT decision makers in the SMB market.
It seems no one can agree on what the cloud is or isn’t. There are in fact several types of cloud computing models. The three most popular are….
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In IT Services industry, there is always a debate over what type of IT provider to choose for your small to medium-sized business. I have often heard from prospects a desire to go with a small, “Mom and Pop” provider to get that “more personal” touch. At face value, a five to ten person shop may seem attractive. You will have less people to communicate with and see the same engineer each week. In theory, your dedicated engineer will REALLY know your account inside and out, right?
Well, maybe…
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Does the Head of Cardiology at a Hospital also work in the Neurology department?……No!
Is the Quarterback ever asked to play in the Secondary?…… No!
How often does the Weatherman also double as the Cameraman on the news?….. Never!
Why is this?…. Well, because heart surgeons don’t operate on brains, Tom Brady isn’t tackling anyone, and Al Roker does not know the first thing about how to work a TV camera.
Enter the CFO. The poor CFO….
He or she does not understand technology. So why then, in a small business environment, does the IT department always seem to report up to the CFO? CFOs know dollars and cents, not bits and bytes. How does a CFO know whether or not the $100,000 Purchase Request that just came for a complete network overhaul is a good investment? To make matters worse, this Purchase Request seems to be written in some strange language that only uses acronyms.
Here is the conversation that inevitably ensues:
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If you have a large number of computers in your business, you already know that there’s more to keeping them running effectively, legally, and safely than other assets your business may require. For instance, your inventory of desks don’t generally require patches as often as your inventory of laptops; and changing a light bulb at end of life is arguably simpler and less risky than replacing one of your application servers. In fact, if your business is run on more than a trivial number of IT devices, the business of managing the information about these devices may, at times, seem like it requires more effort than the actual running of your business.
Want to get the most out of your IT investments?
Here are a few suggestions that can make a big difference:
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Want to see greater value from your IT provider or IT department? Start by aligning your business strategies to your IT investments and initiatives.
Perhaps we are all casualties of the “new gadget of the minute” syndrome (did you just get the new iThing, its so much cooler than the Robodurdur that came out last month don’t you think?). The reality is that new technology is perceived more and more as a list of specs on a marketing slick or a set of features mostly comprised of numbers that are larger (throughput, memory, processing power) or smaller (physical size, weight, amount of dollars lifted from your wallet) than other competing products. While this increasingly commoditized view of technical innovation certainly has its place, particularly at the consumer level where it could be argued that this approach leads to a competitive landscape amongst vendors to build better devices at lower cost, when considered in the context of technology selection within an SMB IT strategy, it can lead to poor overall results and a low return on investment.
To effectively identify and select technologies that should be brought to bear in a small-business IT environment, it is always preferable to begin the conversation at the business process or business operations level. When we meet with clients to discuss their plans for the upcoming year, we often ask about the competitive landscape in their industry and how they are positioning themselves. In response the questions, we get answers such as “we’re just a small shop of 35 people” or “our operation is pretty basic, not a lot of interesting things to discuss on that front”. Opting not to review business operations in the context of IT strategy is a missed opportunity. IT initiatives can be a springboard to greater business growth and differentiation in your particular industry.
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