As a small business owner, you have enough on your plate just running day-to-day operations and managing your team. Also attempting to juggle everything related to technology infrastructure, security, support, and upgrades can quickly turn into a nightmare. That’s why partnering with the right IT solutions is absolutely critical for efficiency and growth.
Understanding Your IT Requirements
The first step is getting crystal clear about your company’s current and projected technology requirements. What software, hardware, and connectivity do your employees require to be productive? How quickly are you growing and what scalability will be needed? What level of performance, uptime, security, and support is essential?
Meet with department heads and staff to truly understand their unique use cases and challenges with existing systems. Catalog everything from communication tools and productivity applications to data storage, backup, networking equipment, and more. This full scope of requirements will guide which solutions best align.
Exploring the SMB IT Landscape
With a solid grasp of your must-have features and specifications, you can start researching potential IT providers geared specifically toward the small/medium business market. The options run the gamut from basic shared web hosting and consumer-grade productivity apps to fully managed enterprise-level services.
For most smaller organizations, an ideal middle ground involves bundling core cloud infrastructure, communication/collaboration tools, security, and support into cost-effective packages. For example, business-class email and Microsoft 365 for business subscriptions provide robust capabilities without the overhead of enterprise deployments.
Many vendors also offer tiered IT services appealing to SMBs. This could include basic remote monitoring and maintenance up to fully managed IT with 24/7 help desk, on-site support, strategic technology planning and more.
Leaning on Professional IT Consultants
Sifting through the many service providers, product options, pricing models and contract terms can be overwhelming, especially for those not deeply immersed in technology day-to-day. SMBs lacking internal IT resources often benefit from working with professional IT consultants, like those at Opkalla, for example.
These experienced technology advisors can thoroughly assess your business needs, make impartial recommendations, handle implementation, and provide ongoing management/maintenance. The right consultant saves you time vetting solutions while ensuring you implement the ideal stack of IT services for your situation, goals, and budget.
Key Factors When Evaluating Solutions
Assuming your essentials feature and functionality requirements are met, small businesses should prioritize the following key factors when evaluating and comparing potential IT solutions:
- Reliability/Performance: Uptime, response times and service levels are crucial for any productivity/revenue-impacting systems.
- Cost-Effectiveness: Look for solutions designed for SMBs that give you enterprise-grade security and capabilities but at far more reasonable price points.
- Scalability/Growth: As your business expands, your technology needs room to grow. Avoid solutions limiting your ceiling for added users, data storage, bandwidth, etc.
- User-Friendliness: Simple, intuitive interfaces reduce training overhead and accelerate adoption among non-technical staff.
- Customer Support: Quick access to knowledgeable support for troubleshooting and issue resolution avoids costly downtime.
Beyond just check-listing specs, inquire about the provider’s reputation, client satisfaction ratings, guarantees/SLAs, implementation resources and other key differentiators. Their expertise in the SMB space proves just as critical as the solution’s capabilities.
Conclusion
With seemingly endless service providers and IT solutions clamoring for your business, cutting through the noise is no easy feat for most small companies. Invest the time upfront to carefully evaluate your requirements and do your due diligence researching viable options.
Don’t be afraid to lean on professional IT consultants who can streamline this process, ensure you implement the perfect solutions stack for your organizational needs, and provide sound strategy for leveraging technology to accelerate growth. While not a trivial expense, the ROI from having optimized systems and support more than justifies the investment for SMBs.
