Most business owners wear multiple hats every day of the week ranging from accounting concerns to cash flow, operational issues to employee problems, etc. Certainly these owners reluctantly dive into IT issues as well and may wonder whether their tech support problems are similar to their fellow business owners.So what are some of the most frequent IT support issues we see when meeting with business owners? Here are a few that almost always seem to surface during an early meeting with a new client.
1. Backup: It is very common that a business’ backup strategy is at best cobbled together with the hope that it never has to be used. There are an enormous amount of backup solutions that can be discussed but it seems this topic is high on the list of small business IT issues.
2. The Cloud: There is a great interest in cloud solutions within the SMB business community with questions on functionality, types of solutions, ease of use, etc. The Cloud is a hot topic in this business sector.
3. Email: Email solutions are almost always a topic of conversation within the small business community as there are a multitude of solutions and many changes taking place in this space. Some companies are still using server based email solutions such as Exchange, some moving to cloud based solutions such as Office 365 while still others have hosted or POP email solutions. Regardless of the solution there is an interest in the latest developments in email strategy.
4. Security: Security seems to be a concern that is addressed in most small business IT discussions. These discussions range from anti-virus protection, authentication procedures, password protocols, remote access solutions, and even conversations related to latest firewall technologies. It seems clear that small business owners are aware of the many IT risks their business faces and are eager to learn more about offerings that can address these threats.
5. Help Desk: Many owner/managers have become the “Reluctant CIOs” of their companies and have to handle the day to day questions and issues that arise within their companies related to IT. For some companies outsourcing this IT support to managed services companies such as CSCI’s TechProtect group make sense as this support helps the owner/manager to get back to concentrating on their core mission which is running their company.
6. Projects/Pain Points: Almost every visit to a small business ultimately leads to a company’s most evident IT pain point or points. These can be virus related, speed related, operating system related, backup related, or even employee related but these conversations generally lead to projects helping to rectify or minimize these issues.
In future weeks we will drill a bit more deeply into some of these common IT topics and discuss specific solutions to many of these issues. Stay tuned…………..