It Is Storing Up Trouble To Allow A Firm's Computer Systems To Become Out Of Date
Doing some IT support for a business earlier this year, I was concerned by how old some of their systems were. I initially went in to connect up a printer that would not obey instructions with the system that it was intended to be fixed to. I managed to get it going via a back door method, but the essential problem was that the software they were operating was very old and was struggling to cope with something that was considerably more up to date.
Doing some IT support for a business earlier this year, I was concerned by how old some of their systems were. I initially went in to connect up a printer that would not obey instructions with the system that it was intended to be fixed to. I managed to get it going via a back door method, but the essential problem was that the software they were operating was very old and was struggling to cope with something that was considerably more up to date.
I was called back a few days later when the firm owner's pc crashed quite spectacularly. It took hours to fix, eventually requiring a total rebuild but we got there finally and I found out that the position isn't out of the ordinary. Apart from their accounting systems, they had no IT support at all which left them exposed and meant that their IT equipment had slipped further and further out of date. And this isn't odd with small firms in the Black Country that are so focused on their main function that the admin work was taken for granted.
This in itself is not a problem, you do not have to have the most recent systems, upgrading and replacing every year or even every couple of years, but operating systems and vital software should be reviewed every three years at least. As some suppliers, partners and customers, certainly the larger ones, will upgrade and as a matter of course they will send and receive files and data and one day, these files will not be usable as the formats will be amended. For instance, someone working with Microsoft Office from the mid to late nineteen ninties (and many are in my experience) will not manage with a file sent from Office 2010 and when it does, everything concerning that partner and work will stop. What if it is an invoice or a substantial order? That could be very expensive.
The same pertains of SEO for firms who put their product online with a costly and well constructed website, which looks brilliant, performs well and is scarcely seen by people looking to do business that could be going to that company. Let us imagine a Black Country steel firm is in need of a new lathe and would like to purchase from a firm close by the vicinity, but cannot find a lathe maker on the web since all their online searches list firms who are better optimised. Our lathe manufacturer might not even be lodged with the search engines in which case the closest search in the world is not going to display them and they may as well not keep a website at all. Maybe they know about SEO which, I will acknowledge, has a poor PR image sometimes, and they see it as a doubtful expense. But quality SEO does work, is worth the cost and how hard is not securing that lathe order?
Small firms have to prioritise on their primary business, of course they do. But they should be kept up to date with their back office systems which means good IT support, SEO as well as the more obvious such as anti virus software. To let them get behind too far will eventually make the worried about outlay a self-fulfilling prophecy instead of an aid to profitability.
20101103
Doing some IT support for a business earlier this year, I was concerned by how old some of their systems were. I initially went in to connect up a printer that would not obey instructions with the system that it was intended to be fixed to. I managed to get it going via a back door method, but the essential problem was that the software they were operating was very old and was struggling to cope with something that was considerably more up to date.
I was called back a few days later when the firm owner's pc crashed quite spectacularly. It took hours to fix, eventually requiring a total rebuild but we got there finally and I found out that the position isn't out of the ordinary. Apart from their accounting systems, they had no IT support at all which left them exposed and meant that their IT equipment had slipped further and further out of date. And this isn't odd with small firms in the Black Country that are so focused on their main function that the admin work was taken for granted.
This in itself is not a problem, you do not have to have the most recent systems, upgrading and replacing every year or even every couple of years, but operating systems and vital software should be reviewed every three years at least. As some suppliers, partners and customers, certainly the larger ones, will upgrade and as a matter of course they will send and receive files and data and one day, these files will not be usable as the formats will be amended. For instance, someone working with Microsoft Office from the mid to late nineteen ninties (and many are in my experience) will not manage with a file sent from Office 2010 and when it does, everything concerning that partner and work will stop. What if it is an invoice or a substantial order? That could be very expensive.
The same pertains of SEO for firms who put their product online with a costly and well constructed website, which looks brilliant, performs well and is scarcely seen by people looking to do business that could be going to that company. Let us imagine a Black Country steel firm is in need of a new lathe and would like to purchase from a firm close by the vicinity, but cannot find a lathe maker on the web since all their online searches list firms who are better optimised. Our lathe manufacturer might not even be lodged with the search engines in which case the closest search in the world is not going to display them and they may as well not keep a website at all. Maybe they know about SEO which, I will acknowledge, has a poor PR image sometimes, and they see it as a doubtful expense. But quality SEO does work, is worth the cost and how hard is not securing that lathe order?
Small firms have to prioritise on their primary business, of course they do. But they should be kept up to date with their back office systems which means good IT support, SEO as well as the more obvious such as anti virus software. To let them get behind too far will eventually make the worried about outlay a self-fulfilling prophecy instead of an aid to profitability.
20101103
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