Every August, families across Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas go through the same ritual.
School supplies? Check.
Uniforms? Check.
Backpack? Check.
Schedules figured out? Check.
Everything gets looked at because nobody wants to discover at 7:15 on the first morning of school that something important was forgotten.
Your business technology deserves the same kind of checkup.
Because if you run a growing business with 10, 20, 30 or more employees, you've probably accumulated a lot of technology over the years.
Computers get added.
Employees come and go.
Software gets changed.
Subscriptions get purchased.
Printers get replaced.
Someone installs a new Wi-Fi access point.
Another location gets opened.
And before long, the way you're handling IT may look very different from when your company was half its current size.
So before Q4 gets busy, here are six things worth checking.
1. Which computers are getting old?
You probably don't need to replace every computer just because it's a few years old.
But you also shouldn't find out a computer needed replacing when an employee walks into your office and says:
“My computer won't turn on.”
Do you know which computers in your company are getting old?
Which ones are out of warranty?
Which employees are constantly complaining that their computer is slow?
And which machines should probably be replaced in the next six or twelve months?
This is one of those things that's easy to ignore when everything is working.
Until it isn't.
A good IT plan helps you see those expenses coming instead of discovering them one emergency at a time.
2. Are you paying for things you don't need—or about to get surprised by a renewal?
Software subscriptions have a way of accumulating.
Microsoft 365.
Industry-specific software.
Backup services.
Cloud applications.
Phone systems.
Internet services.
Security tools.
And sometimes licenses for employees who haven't worked for you in six months.
Before the end of the year, ask:
What are we paying for?
What's renewing?
What aren't we using anymore?
And are there technology expenses coming next year that we should already know about?
Your IT budget shouldn't be a series of surprises.
3. When someone joins or leaves your company, does everybody know what happens?
Think about your last new employee.
Was their computer ready on their first morning?
Did they have the email, software, passwords and access they needed?
Or did they spend half the day waiting while somebody figured everything out?
Now think about the last employee who left.
Was their email disabled?
Were passwords changed where necessary?
Was their access to company files and software removed?
Who checked?
Growing businesses eventually reach a point where “somebody usually takes care of that” isn't a very good process.
There should be a repeatable checklist for bringing employees in—and another one for getting them out.
4. Are the little IT problems actually getting fixed?
This is one I'd pay particular attention to.
Every business has technology annoyances people learn to live with.
“That computer has always been slow.”
“The Wi-Fi doesn't work very well back there.”
“You have to restart the printer when it does that.”
“QuickBooks does that sometimes.”
“Just call Susan. She knows how to fix it.”
Individually, none of those problems seems serious enough to stop everything and deal with.
So employees create workarounds.
They reboot.
They move to another computer.
They unplug something and plug it back in
They ask the one employee who knows the trick.
And eventually the workaround becomes “the way we do it.”
But those little problems cost time.
And more importantly, recurring problems can tell you something about the way your IT is being managed.
If your employees keep reporting the same problem...
why does it keep coming back?
Good IT support shouldn't just help you survive the same problem over and over.
Someone should be asking why it's happening in the first place.
5. If something important stopped working tomorrow, who would own the problem?
Here's a good test.
Imagine your internet goes down tomorrow morning.
Or employees suddenly can't access an important piece of software.
Who gets called?
And then what happens?
Does your office manager call the software company?
Does somebody text your IT guy?
Does the software company say it's the network?
Does the internet provider say their equipment is fine?
Does IT say it's the software?
And eventually...
do you get pulled into the middle of it?
If you're paying someone to handle your IT, you shouldn't also have to manage everybody involved when something goes wrong.
You need someone who takes responsibility for the problem, works with the other vendors and keeps pushing until it's resolved.
The owner shouldn't have to be the referee.
6. If a hurricane, outage or other disruption happened tomorrow, are you actually ready?
Living and doing business in Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas makes this one especially important.
Don't just ask:
“Do we have backups?”
Ask:
“Do we know they're working?”
And then go further.
If your office didn't have power, what would happen?
If employees couldn't get into the building, could the people who need to work from somewhere else actually do it?
Could customers still reach you?
Could employees access the files and software they need?
Who would communicate instructions to your team?
Who would call the necessary vendors?
And who would be responsible for getting your technology operating again?
There's a big difference between having backups and having a plan.
Now Ask Yourself One More Question
Go back through those six items.
How many answers did you know immediately?
And how many sounded more like:
“I think so.”
“I'm pretty sure.”
“Our IT guy probably handles that.”
“I'd have to ask.”
That's the real purpose of this checklist.
You don't need to become an IT expert.
In fact, if you're running a business, you shouldn't have to be one.
But you should be able to feel confident that somebody is taking responsibility for these things.
Has Your Business Outgrown the Way You're Handling IT?
A lot of growing businesses in Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas find themselves in an awkward middle ground.
They're too big to keep handling IT the way they did when they had eight employees.
But they're nowhere near big enough to hire an IT manager and build an internal IT department.
So they keep adding technology while relying on the same IT arrangement they've always had.
Eventually, the business becomes more sophisticated than the way its technology is being managed.
If that sounds familiar, it may be time to have a conversation.
At National Networks, we help growing businesses across Southwest Louisiana and Southeast Texas get the benefits of having an IT department without having to build one themselves.
If you'd like to know whether your current IT setup is keeping up with your business, schedule a 10-minute discovery call with our team.
We'll learn how you're handling IT today, what's frustrating you and whether there are areas that deserve a closer look.
No complicated tech talk.
Just a conversation about your business and whether your IT is doing what you need it to do.
Call us at 888-219-4266 or visit our website https://ntwo.com/discoverycall/ to schedule yours.
