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What to Watch Out For |
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Expense
IT Systems are here to save money - not to consume it. So how much are you paying to maintain your Infrastructure each year. It is worth reviewing the costs.
A medium sized business (around 40 staff) could easily be paying out £30,000pa on software, £30,000pa on upgrades and £50,000 on maintenance - above and beyond the initial setup costs for a server, network and workstations. There are ways to reduce your software and upgrade costs, but your maintenance budget is your biggest expense. Assuming you are going to pay for replacement items, consumables and specialist IT training from this budget, this will leave around £35,000 to employ staff. After overheads, pension contributions and other benefits this leaves a maximum salary of £25,000 - £30,000.
First, you should ask "What calibre of person will I get for the salary I can afford?"
Second, "What happens when this person is on holiday? or is off ill?"
Third, "What affect will this have on the flexibility of the business?"
But most importantly, you should ask "How much will it cost if things go seriously wrong?"
Endeavour is no replacement for knowledge.
Jargon
Most clients know more than they let on. Most clients only become confused because of poor communication by the Support Company. If you encounter jargon in your dealings with your Support Company, start thinking "What are they going to ask me to pay for now?". Write it down and (we cannot stress this enough):
If you don't understand, get a second opinion!
Jargon is endemic in the IT industry.
Always question the assumptions being made as to why you must have items. Always question why you need the most expensive or branded item. Always ask the difference in cost between the branded and the unbranded item.
Fob-Offs
If you want an engineer to call, you expect it to happen. If your Support Company cannot oblige in a reasonable amount of time you should seriously question their commitment. What is reasonable? Well that's your decision based on what you wanted and what you agreed to. Don't let Support Companies short change you. If they feel they can get away with "Oh, can it wait until Friday." they will. Find a better company.
If it regularly takes an engineer over 2 hours to attend site after the call, you should be asking "How important is my business to them?"
Repeat Call-Outs
If you have to call out engineers to resolve the same problem time and time again, strongly reconsider your options. It is clear that there is no commitment to fully resolving your issues AND it is likely that the Support Company does not have the expertise.
Downtime
Downtime is a relative problem. It depends on your business and it's requirements. If you are a major retailer or reseller, a server crash or a network failure could cost you dearly, whereas the loss of one workstation could be accommodated relatively easily. Conversely, if you were a design company with local storage (and hopefully central backup) a server failure might only be an inconvenience; whereas a specific graphics machine might be business critical.
A risk assessment is essential to most businesses. As is the testing of the backup tapes. We know of many examples of an administrator needing to recover from tapes, and for one reason or another, the tapes will not work. If your System Administration people to not check a Full tape restore at least once every 3 months and a Partial restore every month, then you are courting disaster.
(Favio Managed Services routinely offers Full and Partial restores.)
Questions to ask
Viruses/Spam/Bots
You can NEVER be sure your system is clean and fully protected, but a good up to date Anti-Virus package, a good firewall and keeping your Windows patches up to date is a good start. Your IT department can spend hours on every machine, or no time at all. The judgement of the correct amount of work is down to experience. Yes, your system needs constant vigilance - but mostly by the users! If your IT Support have done their job, you should be able to minimise the disruption. Most importantly, your IT Support should be able to respond VERY quickly. If your IT Support takes a day to get to you, the job becomes much more serious. A virus in one machine can easily bring the whole network to a halt.
(Favio guarantees a response within 2 hours of a call - but usually arrives much quicker than that!). Questions to ask
Machine Failures
If a machine fails, it can usually be repaired quickly - provided you have the right parts. If you have a specialist machine, sometimes the time for delivery is both expensive and time consuming. Some branded machines can have parts that cost up to 5 times the real value of the item. However, if you are shrewd, you can acquire second-hand parts at a much lower cost. A good IT Support Company will stock most of the critical parts for all of your machines, and all of the critical parts for the most important machines. (Favio stock replacement items for nearly all our clients machines.)
Questions to ask
Overcharging
Many IT Support Companies like to use the term "Consultant". Favio believes this is because they can charge "Consultancy Rates" for any work. If your IT Support Company charges you a fixed fee, make sure it is a reasonable fixed fee. The charge for repairing a PC should not be the same as the charge to maintain and upgrade your Oracle database. A good IT Support company will offer different rates for different work. (Favio has a pricing structure based on the type of work being done. Where it is necessary to avoid downtime, Favio will make best efforts to do all work outside hours at no extra cost to the client*) * Subject to a limit on the amount of work involved and a full contractual agreement with the client.
Questions to ask
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IT Systems Support |
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Favio Ltd |
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Est. 2004 |
