Managing Small Business IT Investments …

They’re Just as Important as in Major Industry Where Centralized Teams Monitor Tech Assets

By Keith Coker, PresidentOrLANtech Inc.Regardless of size, businesses today have substantial investments in informationtechnology … but the smaller the company the greater the challenge to monitor andmanage those assets efficiently and affordably.When you factor in that companies in virtually every business sector are cutting costs –and cost-cutting always means eliminating positions – IT maintenance is going tobecome a very important topic … especially in small to medium-sized businesses whereinformation technology is just as much the spine of their work as it is in megacorporations.The difference for smaller firms is that they can’t rely on centralized IT services likecompanies with global distribution.What is sure to increase, however, is spending to ensure that existing IT investmentsare well-maintained and that companies are getting a maximum return on thatinvestment.If predictions by experts like Gartner and other IT consultants are any indication,information technology spending is not going to set the world on fire in 2009. Peter Sondergaard, senior vice president and global head of research for Gartner predictedthis year’s spend rate for IT would increase 2.3 percent … down from an earlier projection of a 5.8 percent increase.“Organizations seeking to rationalize IT spending should look closely at IT servicesinvestments, because they can represent one of the largest opportunities for costsavings and optimization,” according to Gartner’s Research Vice President FrancesKaramouzis. “Managing IT costs is not just about buying the hardware and software.The big spending is in the delivery of IT services to design, build, deploy and managethose assets. The art and science of execution are where the money is and key to thesavings.”

Quite frankly – and this is hard for a “computer guy” to say – many companies haveoverdone it. Our business society has become so attuned to the latest technology thatthey often fail to ask “how much do I really need.” Much like American family budgets,we have built IT budgets around what we want … the latest, coolest gadget, rather thanthe tool that gets the job done.Here are three simple questions you should ask to help decide whether you’re better off staffing IT internally, followed by five things every IT manager can do to ensure their investment and the return on it will ride out the recession.

How many users do we have on our network?

If the answer is less than100, experience tells us that a full-time IT department has a lot of excess timeon its hands. If you’ve recently downsized (or anticipate you’ll need to), thisratio is going to get worse.

Are we already backing up to an offsite storage center?

If so, youalready have a connection that opens up the potential to take advantage of managed IT services (more on that later). If not, you’re at risk of losing thenervous system of your entire enterprise (more on that later, too).

How new (or old) is our hardware and software?

Newer systems usuallyrequire less attention so if you’ve recently upgraded your demand will belower and may not provide your staff with a great deal to do.

New Technology. New Opportunities.

While there’s truth in the old saying “the more things change, the more they stay thesame,” that doesn’t work with technology. Yes … technology is making things easier for us. But it is rapidly increasing what we need to know.However, it has also made it more cost effective for IT specialists to do their job and weare doing more work for more clients at lower costs because of the technology itself. Infact, our Managed Services Center allows our engineers to monitor the networks of our clients remotely for a fraction of what it used to cost to have network engineers on-siteor on staff.Remote monitoring is the wave of the future. It not only lets our clients work withoutworry, our monitoring service works while they are sleeping. If something goes wrong, itcan push us into action and get us on track to a solution that can save time and money.Often, our engineers are able to detect, diagnose, and solve problems before clientseven know a potential problem existed.Regardless of whether you have an IT staff or have chosen to turn to a networkconsultant, here are five things you can do right now to shore up your investment. (Hint:if your IT team hasn’t already recommended this, it may be a clear sign you need torethink how you are staffing your information technology services.)