Imagine for a moment that you woke up tomorrow morning and discovered you are having a major tech emergency. In this (hopefully imaginary) scenario, you could discover that you’ve been targeted by hackers or that a major piece of equipment, like a company email server, has failed. What would you do? And what would it mean for the future of your business?
Many business owners and executives don’t like to think about these sorts of questions. That’s because they don’t know the answers, and are afraid of what they would learn if they did. But the “what if” game can be valuable for helping you understand risks and opportunities.
To help you understand why we are going to lay out three scenarios that are entirely plausible. Then we’ll show you the differences between them.
3 Everyday Tech Disasters That Each End Differently
For the purposes of this example, imagine three identical businesses. Each one has a well-meaning but underachieving employee who unintentionally deletes many files or unplugs some cables that should have remained intact. In just a few seconds the computer belonging to the finance director is ruined.
This isn’t a major “disaster,” like a fire or flood, but it can have big implications. Let’s walk through them.
In the first company, the owner or CEO hasn’t taken any steps to prepare for this kind of event. They have to rush around to find an IT provider who can help. Not only do they incur lots of last-minute emergency repair costs, but the files themselves are irretrievable. As a result, the company loses many tens of thousands of dollars.
The second business is better prepared. They have an IT provider who looks after their systems with a managed services plan. So, even though the event is a disruption, their vendor is able to quickly restore backups and get the business running again. The episode is annoying, but the business is relatively unaffected.
And finally, in the third company, the 24/7 help desk monitoring team notices the issue right away. After a quick phone call, the vendor solves the problem remotely before the business owner is even aware of what happened. No one is affected by something that could have resulted in a much bigger setback.
One Event With Three Outcomes
You will notice that we started with the same premise for each company. So why were the outcomes so different? That’s easy:
- The first company was following an outdated pay-per-hour IT service model.
- The second company had a good managed services team in place.
- The third had a managed services partner who went the extra mile in terms of service.
And that is really the point – both for this example and outsourced IT in general. A good managed services provider can do a lot for your business. But you shouldn’t settle for good. Instead, find a team that will get to know your company and does everything they can to keep you running smoothly. Then, they can take care of problems before they ever develop into operational challenges in the first place.
Need a Proven Managed Services Partner for Your Business?
Contact the friendly and knowledgeable team at Fantastic IT today. It only takes a moment to schedule a free consultation and see what we can do to help you run a more efficient and profitable business.