Do you know the Murphy’s law? It tells us that anything that can go wrong, will go wrong unless you do something about it. It cannot be any truer than in the realm of information technology. From minor hiccups such as your workstation’s unplanned Windows update, to the latest massive Facebook outage, things can go bad if not planned beforehand. IT support is all about preventing such problems.
The Reactive IT support model allows organizations to buy a block of hours, and consume it on as needed basis. In this model, the IT support waits for problems to happen, instead of pre-emptively avoiding them. Understanding this flawed approach is especially important for small and medium-sized businesses.
It’s not Halloween but consider these IT-support horror stories…
Caprice Automotive thought they had an excellent deal with a local IT service company for a low cost of fifty prepaid hours, used on as as-needed basis. When their systems got hacked by ransomware, all of their data and files got encrypted. Their IT company was helpless because there was no strategy and planning that goes into such a support model.
In another example, Alex was a system administrator at a mid-size company. He was tasked with taking weekly backups of company data. He had to leave early on one Friday for personal reasons. And you guessed it right, he could not take the weekly backup. On Monday morning the system crashed, but he could not restore the latest data because the last backup was two weeks old. Alex could barely save his job.
Such horror stories could have been avoided if the organization had opted for a proactive support model and outsourced some of its services such as Cyber security or routine backups and maintenance. In fact, conventional wisdom often causes smaller businesses to perceive the reactive support model as cheaper. But let me convince you why it is a bad idea.
Getting Proactive IT Services is Logical
As they say, prevention is better than cure. You can handle flu and cold with over-the-counter medicine. But some serious diseases could be prevented in the first place, through lifestyle changes, healthy diet, exercise, or even vaccination if necessary. If someone contracts the disease, it eats off their financial resources rapidly. Likewise, a proactive IT service approach helps you avoid technology disasters to begin with.
Proactive IT Support Costs Less
Contrary to popular belief, proactive maintenance may seem more expensive but in fact it is much cheaper. An MSP working on a prepaid block of hours has a conflict of interest to proactively manage potential IT issues. When an issue arises, the effort to deal with it is usually much higher than it’s prevention. Therefore, it makes perfect sense for SMEs. Although the bigger companies have plenty of resources to cope with unexpected scenarios, even such companies incur a higher cost for not being proactive. On the other hand, SMEs cannot afford expensive resources. In many cases, it would be a wise decision to outsource some operations such as IT security, system administration, and desktop support.
Reactive IT Support is Not Strategic
The reactive model also exposes organizations to risks associated with a lack of IT strategy, such as cyber security threats, IT operational efficiency issues, staying on top of evolving technologies, keeping the organization productive, and so on. In the competitive world as ours, strategic decisions spell out the success or failure of businesses.
Try the Hybrid Approach
If cost is a big concern, you can try a hybrid approach, which may at least mitigate major risks. The hybrid approach is to have proactive maintenance for critical IT needs such as cyber security, workstation and server updates & patches, and quarterly or semi-annual IT strategic reviews. In this approach, the rest of IT services can be treated on ad-hoc as needed basis. This way you can get the best of the both worlds. You can save on financials resources and avoid costs that you may incur if a disaster struck.
How we can help
We offer IT services for small and mid-size companies to help them gain competitive edge. With our technology specialization and business knowledge, we can help you overcome operational and productivity challenges. Many of our clients struggled with finding experienced IT resources who understood their business, applications, and systems. However, after acquiring our services, their problems disappeared. Our service approach is to be proactive which means pre-empting problems. The result is the lowest number of support tickets, which is a win-win for all. Do you have any reactive model horror story? Share with us. We can help you avoid them in the future.
About Irfan Butt
CRES Technology – Founder and CEO
A strategic leader with more than twenty years of progressive experience in Business Administration, Finance, Product Development, and Project Management. Irfan has a proven track record with broad range of industries including hospitality, real estate, banking, finance, and management consulting.