It’s time for an alignment. No, not for your tires, but for your technology. The computer you use at work--and the routers and servers that run your office--function much like your automobile. They both run best with proactive performance monitoring and maintenance.
Wouldn’t be nice if your car never broke down? Or, even if it did break down, a 15-minute fix was all it took to get you back on the road? We know that's not the case with our cars, yet we hold out hope that our office technology works that way. You could continue to take a break/fix approach, or you can treat your tech like you should treat your car. Proactive maintenance is what it takes to get the most out of your car and your office technology. Since we cannot expect either of these tools to last forever, we should take care of them before they break down and cause us pain.
So what would a proactive approach look like for your office technology?
What if you had a mechanic who laid out a yearly plan for your car with everything you need to take care of? What if this plan included a budget and timing for its items, and everything was then communicated to you and received regular follow-up? You would find that your stress level was drastically different because your car care was now predictable and not mysterious. Could things still break down? Of course, but your plan shows you exactly what to do when that happens, minimizing impact.
The approach should look no different for your technology. Your technology has a perfect world that it can live in, a world that it was designed to function within. The reality of technology is that it always tends to chaos and disorder from the moment you set it up. Left on its own, it will break down and degrade over time. There is no avoiding this or getting around it because technology is made up of physical parts that will not last forever. The hard drives will wear out just like the engine or transmission of a car over time. Without regular alignment and proactive maintenance, your car breaks down, and so will your technology.
The standard approach for most business owners or staff is to wait until things are on fire or broken down before they pick up the phone and call their IT company. This has many negative effects, including a progressively strained relationship between employees and the IT department that they work with. Those conversations are usually stressful, and happen at a time when the end-user needs to get work done but cannot because their computer won’t work... or the server is down… again.
What if that was reversed and most of the conversations you had with your IT provider were about budgeting and planning related to your business needs, and proactive alignment, so that your technology doesn’t break down and your employees can work?
The current IT model is broken. The good news is that there is another way. By taking a proactive approach to your technology, you can be more efficient and allow your technology to move you forward rather than hold you back.
IT Managed Service Providers (MSPs) like PEAKE are built to proactively monitor your technology performance and maintenance. A relationship with an IT MSP ensures that all your systems are regularly assessed and compared to the industry’s best practices. The experts at PEAKE Technology Partners stay ahead of most problems and plan out your infrastructure growth to keep systems running smoothly as you scale. Our team will sit and review these results with you so that you can make the right business decisions. Working with your IT provider should bring confidence, not heartburn, as you strategize how to advance your business to where you want it to go.
How do you apply this proactive approach?
It begins with rethinking your company’s relationship with technology. Here are a couple things to consider:
- What would your business look like if your technology was never a roadblock to your operations or growth?
- How would your business plans change if your technology was actually the accelerator that made your business scale faster and more efficiently?
- How much time do employees spend waiting on your IT provider to fix their computers? If that wasn't the case, how much more productive and happier would they be?
Before you can truly value your technology or the IT company you employ, you must reshape your thinking and step into a proactive approach for your technology.
Don’t have a trusted IT partner? We can help you with that! If your practice is in the eastern United States, PEAKE Technology Partners is ready to serve you. For practices in other parts of the country, we would be glad to connect you with another partner that we have vetted.
About the Author
Kevin Breckenridge is a Centralized Services Manager and Tier 3 Engineer at PEAKE Technology Partners serving Medical IT needs in and around Washington, DC. Kevin is a Microsoft Certified IT Professional with 10 years of IT experience in a Managed Service Provider environment. You'll find him designing solutions by the whiteboard wall or munching on a Hawaiian pizza slice.
