There seems to be a new and exciting technology development every month. It can be hard to know what technology could be beneficial to our business and personal lives. Commercials, online articles, email ads, and telemarketers are bombarding us with news and information about all of the technology available to us and why they think we need it. The world seems wonderful with this new tech.
Is this new technology actually new? Is it an improved version of a previous technology worth adopting? Or is it a technology that has been changed slightly without significant benefit to make more money for a company?
These are questions all of us ask when it comes to devices, software, and services for our business or personal life (sometimes both). They can be difficult or near impossible to answer, even with thorough Googling.
Understanding is further made difficult because articles and ads online are often written by salespeople or writers paid by a company to make their product or service look good. Even when a lot of information is provided it often contains a silent sales pitch. With the modern internet this can go deeper than many realize, influencing seemingly authentic news and magazine websites, Facebook and other social media, and even encyclopedias like Wikipedia.
Full confession, this page that you are reading is informational, but is guided to bring businesses to consider Clarity Business IT Solutions as a potential vendor. Of course, the benefit of Clarity having another client is only balanced by your business saving money and improving productivity by having your technology project managed or the ongoing management of your technology by a local company versus hiring a full-time IT employee (self-promotional side note: If you have 10-60 office-working employees it is highly likely that you will save money).
As a business owner, manager, or one who is in charge of researching so decisions can be made, making choices with technology can be difficult. This goes beyond the newer technologies. Sometimes we are using older technology, adopted 10, 20, or more years ago and we don’t know if the latest technology is right for us. Maybe there is an appeal to a 5 year old technology because it’s far more advanced than our 20 year old system. This may be true.
Many businesses go through technologies in shorter periods of time because hasty decisions were made to adopt without fully understanding the technology, how it works with their business and devices, and the costs. This leads to difficult transitions for the business and excessive costs. All of these are unnecessary. While new technologies are constantly coming out there is no need to adopt something newer unless there is a notable cost-saving and productivity benefit for the company which takes into consideration recent technology changes.
The point of this article, as you may see, is that technology is complex today, even when it seems simpler and that making technology decisions is difficult, even with all of the information online. This fact is the reason why Clarity is in business; because other businesses need experts on technology to filter the noise and provide durable solutions to their technology needs. We want to make technology a seamlessly working part of your business’ day to day, whether your needs are for a one-time project or ongoing assistance (or both).
What does it mean that we can help with a single project or ongoing assistance?
One-Time Project: If you need help with a short-term project, such as setting up a new server or moving email to the cloud, we can work with you.
Ongoing Assistance: If you want to work with a local company to manage some or all parts of your technology (computers, laptops, tablets, smartphones, servers, routers, switches, backups, email, websites, etc.), we can work with you.
The choice to work with an IT company for a project may seem easier to understand versus ongoing assistance. Companies choose to hire us for ongoing tech support for a few reasons, usually following into one of the following situations:
- The company is growing and realizes it needs professional tech support.
- The IT person at the company isn’t an IT person by profession and performs other duties at the company that are more in line with their skills.
- An existing IT person is taking on too much and needs help.
- There is a desire to switch from having an IT person or department to a local company.
Companies will ask themselves a question in the first three scenarios: Should we hire an IT employee?
We love IT professionals, contractors or employees. We are IT professionals. However, IT employees are expensive to hire and it is nearly always a waste for a small business to hire one. Especially, if the company has less than 60 office-working employees. A starting wage for someone with less experience is around $60,000 per year ($5,000 per month). While you may have some projects or tasks that require a lot of time at the beginning, this expense will quickly become an unnecessary burden during periods of stability with technology.
Opposed to hiring an employee is hiring a local company to manage your business technology. Like the new employee, there may be a lot to do at the beginning. However, over time as systems are optimized and maintained regularly you will be a stabilization. It costs most of our medium-sized small business clients less than a part-time entry-level employee to manage their technology.
We want you to make informed decisions about your technology needs. We hope this article was beneficial for you in this process. If you would like any further advice or more information about our company (including pricing, detailed list of services, and references), contact us at any time.