“The Computer Guy”

Many businesses consider IT as a daunting realm of questions marks and headaches. These same organizations also often manage their own IT or even better, have the infamous “IT guy” (a staff member who knows “everything” about computers) in the office. Sure, this staff member might be interested and might even be highly knowledgeable about computers and infrastructure, but what was he hired for? While he fixes those pesky computer issues that keep popping up, he slips further and further behind on his actual job (which normally has nothing to do with computers to begin with).

Let’s call this computer guy “Jim”. Jim enjoys computers and spends much of his free time staying up to date with tech news and updates. Jim also is employed at a financial firm where his boss pays him to crunch numbers and handle corporate budgets. As the years of his employment progressed, Jim noticed he was spending less and less time looking at numbers and more time reacting to his coworkers’ computer glitches or troubleshooting network issues. Jim’s superiors haven’t ever considered hiring a proactive IT provider because Jim is amazing at reacting and solving the little tech issues that pop up!

Do you think Jim has the means to properly perform his job? Jim’s superiors may be correct when saying that he is great at fixing computer issues… but what if these issues could be prevented and eliminated all together? Jim doesn’t have the means, the support or the time to provide proactive IT support; not to mention all of the financial reports that are overdue!! While Jim may keep busy all day troubleshooting on tech forums, the fact that he is not able to perform the job he was originally hired for demonstrates the thousands of dollars of downtime caused by lack of efficient IT support.

Reactive support is a fact of life and will never be 100% avoidable but proactive and preventative measures can reduce the amount of headaches and surprises exponentially. Give Jim a break! Consider outsourcing your IT and leave it to the experts. Fixing an email issue or rebooting the server here and there may seem quite minor, but if you add up the amount of hours Jim has spent doing a job that is not his… you’ll be in for a shock!