If You Think Your IT is “Okay”, it Isn’t.

There is an old phrase that applies if you feel that your IT is only ‘okay’ or ‘good enough’: “Damned by faint praise”. Look at your competitors – do you think they aspire to attain a state of mediocrity? Because IT that is just ‘okay’ is indeed mediocre.

To many CEOs and administrators, IT is a mysterious necessity that they’d rather not think about – until they have to. Usually, the reason they suddenly have to think about it is because it failed, shut down all or part of the network, and productivity stopped on a dime.

What you expect (or hope for) from your network is the same as what you expect from your automobile - every time you start either one up, you want a permanent ‘Yes’ response. You usually don’t know anything’s wrong until you do not get that response. Your IT services person or team should be almost invisible to you – leaving you concentrate on the core nature of your business and the goals you have set.

With a car, it’s better to turn the key and have nothing happen then to have a serious failure when you’re driving – most likely, it will only require roadside assistance and possibly time in the shop. With your network, your business grinds to halt until whichever form of IT you use either shows up to fix it or effects the repairs remotely. In the Charlotte IT Community, there is a range of service models available, from the hourly rate, garden variety ‘IT Guys’ (called ‘Break/Fix’ or B&F in the industry) to all-encompassing Managed Services Providers (MSPs).

If It Ain’t Broke… Break It!

At ITFirm.com, we speak frequently with CEOs and administrators who thought everything was okay - until it wasn’t. When we perform our ‘discovery’ by examining and assessing the network, we often find an utter mess – networks that are figuratively held together with Band Aids and duct tape. Maybe CEO thought he was getting off cheaply by paying a B&F IT services ‘Guy’ by the hour and only calling when the network or a workstation was down, but that is a recipe for disaster – and it gets expensive.

Aside from being unaware just how sloppily their network has been tended to, they often have no idea what it’s really costing them. Typically, each office visit is billed and paid separately, so it’s not until they reconcile all those bills that they really see how much they’re paying – usually a lot more than they thought.

What are Break/Fix issues?

1) As one might guess, ‘Break’ as the first word does not indicate good times ahead. Proactive, predictive, and ongoing maintenance keeps most things from breaking. Hourly rate B&F people are just there to fix broken things and rack up billable hours. A Managed IT Services firm saves time and money for both themselves and their clients by preventing breakdowns – impending problems are not difficult for experienced professionals to foresee.

2) Every time the network breaks down it creates an emergency and takes time before you can resume normal operations. Something breaks down and you call for IT service, probably have to leave a message, and then you wait. You wait for a call back, you wait for them to show up, you wait while they troubleshoot and figure out the problem and then you wait for them to fix it. The IT HelpDesk at a Managed Services Provider (MSP) provider like ITFirm.com will answer the call or email request for service with a live person, and depending on the nature of the issue, will typically have it fixed within 20 – 30 minutes.

3) The B&F IT provider gets paid by the hour. They have ZERO incentive to get things done quickly, and ZERO incentive to fix it right the first time – in the IT industry, we call this kind of work the ‘Band Aid’ approach – more money for them, more downtime for you.

4) B&F is Reactive, not Proactive. Preventive maintenance and remote repair mean less downtime.

5) Inferior security. Unless your Firewall or Antivirus (AV_ malfunctions, B&F guys don’t look at it. Hopefully, your security patches and updates have been set to be performed automatically, but you should not take that for granted. Do you know if you have secure, reliable backups in the event of the disaster that’s waiting to happen? We have been called in by companies whose ‘IT Guy’ didn’t know what to do when they suffered a Ransomware attack. At least half the time we find that there are no backups from which to restore the data that’s been encrypted by the crooks. No way to wipe the infected devices and reinstall the data. The only recourse for the company is to pay the ransom and hope the crooks give them a decryption key (over 40% do NOT get their data back).

6) You are typically unaware of the true cost. Since every call generates a new invoice – generally six to ten per month, you have to reconcile them to see how much your ‘cheap’ IT service is costing you.