March 23, 2006
When Sticking With "Small Business" Tools is Dumb
There comes a point in your life when you realize that the pants or other clothes you are wearing don't fit. That happens MANY times from child hood to teenager, then a few times from teenager to adult. A similar experience might happen in the life of a small business. They started out buying a web hosting package, email product, computer or whatever that was built for "small businesses". But now that they are growing they really need to consider a more robust tool.
SearchSMB.com writes "If you overbuy, you'll have to upgrade the skills of your IT staff or make some sort of arrangement with the vendor for help," said Richard Ptak, founder and senior analyst at Ptak, Noel & Associates, a New Hampsire consulting firm.
t's important to recognize when it's time for a new approach to IT. For instance, a CIO at a company with an IT system that has grown increasingly complex during the last three to five years should take a step back and look at the business.
"If a smaller business is getting to the point where IT is getting out of hand, where it needs to create an environment that is more easily managed, that's actually an area where enterprise-class vendors have tools that would be valuable for a small business to look at," King said.
Ptak said if a CIO is on the fence, he should just ask himself if his IT system is contributing to the success of the business.
"If they're running out of capacity, if there are slow response times, if it feels like the operation is slipping out of control, if they're spending more time trying to juggle the resources they have rather than using those resources constructively to help their business, then they know they're in trouble," Ptak said.
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