As an IT consultancy in London it's truly incredible to see so many SME's today entrust almost their entire business to something so fragile that a static shock could wipe it out. Imagine if your business was a glass ball. You'd want to wrap it up, to protect it. To guard against any possible accidents. You'd do almost anything to make sure that nothing untoward could happen to it, because you know that just one small chip or crack could spell complete disaster.
Most SME's depend upon their IT infrastructure, and often the data is stored in ways which don't adequately protect against disaster. Often businesses are too busy running the business to think about using an IT services consultancy to improve the IT protection. After all, it hasn't gone down this week, this month or this year, so probably things will be all right. There aren't any thunderstorms forecast for the next few days.
The problem is that every single day you let pass by without doing something the number of threats and risks, and the severity of those risks increases. There's really only one guarantee, and that is that one day, maybe today, maybe tomorrow, maybe not until next year, but one day your IT systems will fail. Are you ready for that? What will you do when your IT systems collapse, shattering your glass ball? Hand over your wallet to a computer support company and hope they have a plaster big enough to make everything all right?
The trouble is that many SME's start out small, and have relatively modest IT Infrastructures. As the business expands, so do the IT solutions, and as new solutions are bolted on, existing sections replaced and upgraded, new connections established and new safety measures added on top, the entire thing becomes an organic mess. It might well work, but it's inherently little more than a house of cards, built one card at a time. Once one card fails, the entire castle comes toppling down.
There is almost no business today which can manage without relying on technology in one form or another, and the level of reliance can vary enormously. Technology has opened many doors, enabling SME's to compete on a much more equal footing with large established businesses. SME's can often implement changes and take advantage of new opportunities more quickly and efficiently than larger companies which need to go through several layers of bureaucracy first. But whilst this technology has provided many advantages, it hangs over the business like the sword of Damocles, always threatening to bring the house of cards to the ground.
When that day happens the call to an IT support company won't be a pretty one, and the solution will often be to invest large sums of money in building a new system, whilst struggling to keep things afloat. Such situations have broken many businesses in the past, and the pity of it is that it's largely unnecessary.
If your business has grown over the years, with its IT Infrastructure growing in an organic way it may be time to step back from your card tower and see it for what it really is. Yes, it works, and yes, it's been working for ages, but that's only because there hasn't been a strong enough gust of wind coming in the right direction yet.
Taking action now, whilst the cards are still standing makes a lot of sense, because right now is when you have control over everything. You control the budget, how new solutions are developed and integrated. It's far easier to discuss with an IT consultancy how your IT solutions can be improved, with extra security built in to provide you with security and protection than it is to try to rebuild a business from the scattered remains of what you used to have.