The other day I was over at a new client's office introducing my team when in walked the most stereotypical computer geek I had seen in a long time. This guy had to have been pushing three bills easy and looked like he "gamed" every Sunday night. It didn't take long to realize that the "IT staff" the owner had just got done explaining we were taking over for had just waddled out of the room.
Insults aside, I was once again dumbfounded at the sincere lack of management of the IT staff (who turned out to be two guys instead of just the one) for that organization. They are in health care which is a big grower in Michigan, they have added 20 employees over the past year and plan on adding another 20-30 in the next 8 months.
There was no antivirus. There were no backups. There was no disaster recovery plan. There was, however, plenty of their fortune 500 clients angry at them because they did not have a functioning email or telephony solution. This was essentially what these two gentlemen were getting paid $60k a year to do. Sit there and watch their technology blow up.
We were called because their email server crashed with no explanation. We spent 14 hours fixing the problem - essentially rebuilding a house of cards. We were the heroes, and now they will be replacing their IT staff with our company.
Don't go hiring an IT guy for your company because its the typical thing to do. Hire a solution, not a person. Have a look at managed IT services. This is a model that is much more cost effective for small and medium sized businesses.
The night that email server crashed, our managed support left the client site with everything fixed at 9pm... 3 hours after their own IT staff left for the evening.
For the win.
Tuesday, September 2, 2008
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