You do not have an IT department. Well you could call George, the guy who setup your network in the first place. George is the “computer technician” who failed to setup your network security, when he created your network.

I like George; he gives me a lot of business fixing problems he leaves behind.

One of the advantages of having your own IT department is they become familiar with

Small business owners often find themselves in a situation where they need to do everything. They are their own IT person, writer or even delivery person. Sometimes they have had their next-door neighbor setup up their peer-to-peer network. Maybe they had a computer person set things up then tried to maintain the network on their own. There are many reasons.

What it all adds up to is you have a network with many security problems and poor performance.

Poor performance can lead to lost productivity due to lost data or hardware and software problems. If every time you start MS Word it takes five minutes to open up, and you open it four times per day, you could loose as much as twenty minutes per day. That is over 120 hours per year for just one application!

A system heavily infected with adware and spyware can easily take this long to startup or shutdown programs, if it does not crash frequently. Since adware and spyware authors do not care if your PC crashes, they tend to write sloppy programs that cause problems when they interact with legitimate applications.

The security side can be even more problematic. Do you maintain customer data on your network? If you do, you may have a legal responsibility to safeguard that data. Failure to do so could open your business up to litigation. We all know how lawsuit happy Americans have become.

So what do you do?

Do what the big companies do, turn the problem over to your IT department and make them solve the problem.

You do not have an IT department. Well you could call George, the guy who setup your network in the first place. George is the “computer technician” who failed to setup your network security, when he created your network.

I like George; he gives me a lot of business fixing problems he leaves behind.

One of the advantages of having your own IT department is they become familiar with

What it all adds up to is you have a network with many security problems and poor performance.

Poor performance can lead to lost productivity due to lost data or hardware and software problems. If every time you start MS Word it takes five minutes to open up, and you open it four times per day, you could loose as much as twenty minutes per day. That is over 120 hours per year for just one application!

A system heavily infected with adware and spyware can easily take this long to startup or shutdown programs, if it does not crash frequently. Since adware and spyware authors do not care if your PC crashes, they tend to write sloppy programs that cause problems when they interact with legitimate applications.

The security side can be even more problematic. Do you maintain customer data on your network? If you do, you may have a legal responsibility to safeguard that data. Failure to do so could open your business up to litigation. We all know how lawsuit happy Americans have become.

So what do you do?

Do what the big companies do, turn the problem over to your IT department and make them solve the problem.

You do not have an IT department. Well you could call George, the guy who setup your network in the first place. George is the “computer technician” who failed to setup your network security, when he created your network.

I like George; he gives me a lot of business fixing problems he leaves behind.

One of the advantages of having your own IT department is they become familiar with

A system heavily infected with adware and spyware can easily take this long to startup or shutdown programs, if it does not crash frequently. Since adware and spyware authors do not care if your PC crashes, they tend to write sloppy programs that cause problems when they interact with legitimate applications.

The security side can be even more problematic. Do you maintain customer data on your network? If you do, you may have a legal responsibility to safeguard that data. Failure to do so could open your business up to litigation. We all know how lawsuit happy Americans have become.

So what do you do?

Do what the big companies do, turn the problem over to your IT department and make them solve the problem.

You do not have an IT department. Well you could call George, the guy who setup your network in the first place. George is the “computer technician” who failed to setup your network security, when he created your network.

I like George; he gives me a lot of business fixing problems he leaves behind.

One of the advantages of having your own IT department is they become familiar with

The security side can be even more problematic. Do you maintain customer data on your network? If you do, you may have a legal responsibility to safeguard that data. Failure to do so could open your business up to litigation. We all know how lawsuit happy Americans have become.

So what do you do?

Do what the big companies do, turn the problem over to your IT department and make them solve the problem.

You do not have an IT department. Well you could call George, the guy who setup your network in the first place. George is the “computer technician” who failed to setup your network security, when he created your network.

I like George; he gives me a lot of business fixing problems he leaves behind.

One of the advantages of having your own IT department is they become familiar with

You do not have an IT department. Well you could call George, the guy who setup your network in the first place. George is the “computer technician” who failed to setup your network security, when he created your network.

I like George; he gives me a lot of business fixing problems he leaves behind.

One of the advantages of having your own IT department is they become familiar with your operations and can quickly resolve any problems that pop up.

How can you take advantage of having your own IT staff? Hire an IT support company for the service. I know “outsourcing” is a dirty word these days, but if you think about it small businesses have always benefited from outsourcing.

Why contract for your IT support? One reason is you may not have a need for a fulltime onsite technician. If you only have a need for a technician ten hours a week, do you want to pay for a full forty hours?

To protect yourself and maintain a professional relationship with your support company always insist on a service contract. This contract defines the responsibilities of both parties.

Your service contract should cover the following aspects:

Service Level Agreement

This is the performance standard you use to measure the response you receive from your support company. For instance, my company typically offers three levels of service level agreements. Each level costs a different amount based on the timeliness of service. If you contract for a four-hour response, you are guaranteed a technician on-site in less than four hours. A twelve-hour SLA would have a technician on-site in less than twelve hours. Naturally, the quicker the response the more the costs. This can work in your favor if you can afford to wait a little while for support.

On-site Support

This is when a technician is dispatched to your location and should be considered the minimum level of service.

Telephone Support

Telephone support offers your business two big incentives, quicker resolution and lower costs. Phone support can retu