How valuable is technology to your business?
What kinds of technology does your business use? Accounting systems, file storage, printing, design applications, email? Security systems, remote access, point of sale? Inventory, operations, communications, internet, customer management? This is just a small listing of the systems people rely on to make their businesses run effectively. The actual list is enormous and growing every minute.
We've come a long way from the abacus and we will continue to invent and adapt and refine what helps a business run. Sometimes people take for granted that business information systems will run reliably and perform correctly as they age and as the world around them changes. Why is this? Maybe the term "plug and play" has something to do with it. We may be accustomed to plugging in technology and just "playing" with it forever, but the reality is that these systems require management to update, optimize, and monitor.
For some businesses, technology is a mere convenience, like for instance a doctor's office with WiFi. Having the convenience of wireless access to the network and internet is nice, but not necessary. For others, if WiFi were to go down it would be serious and costly to the primary business functions, like for instance a warehouse company using robots to handle package delivery. Without the communication coming in over WiFi, the robots would be lost and without direction from their controlling systems.
When a company relies on technology for important aspects of the business like a doctor's office relies on electronic medical records (EMR) and patient management systems, the value is high. When the value of technology is high, reliability, performance, up time, remote monitoring and instant remote assistance is critical and therefore the management of those systems is critical. Why would a company that relies greatly on technology like EMR and patient management systems choose to run those systems on unreliable methods and neglect management of those systems? To save money? It doesn't make sense. What does make sense is to match the investment in systems management and maintenance with the value of the technology. In other words, businesses should plan to spend according to how much they value the technology they use. If the technology is of high value, the related costs to build, manage and maintain the technology may also be high.
This should be no surprise, but for some businesses, high value technology is a new paradigm. The recent "paperless" wave of digitizing every record and every file has been fantastic for businesses, but it has also upped the reliance on technology that stores and maintains those files. Maybe someone said, "all you need to do is scan these records into the file server", but forgot to mention that now the file server is a single point of failure for your business, and that it has an unreliable single power supply design and no off-site backup. Maybe someone said "all you need to do is put everything on Office 365", but forgot to mention that when your internet is down, your business will be down too and that your DSL connection is going to be overwhelmed when your entire office is using Office 365. These things are important for businesses that rely on technology to understand and that's why it's important to have a trusted technology partner on your side when planning, implementing and maintaining the technology. Computers, routers, wireless access points, mobile phones, tablets and servers don't just maintain themselves. Sure they will auto-update, but do you have that function turned on? Do you know how to? Do you know which updates to install and which ones to avoid? Do you know how to update firmware? Do you have someone to call when it all breaks? Someone who will be able to remotely access your high-valued technology in minutes? Do you care? If you're a business owner and you're relying on it, you better.
Give us a call. We'll explain it all.
