Common IT mistakes businesses make.
- Not having an IT plan or budget for the year
Modern workplaces are now heavily reliant on IT . When business
IT fails business stops, workers are sent home, communications
cease, invoicing to customers stops, unfortunately though the
costs of business continue to incur.
Good management by default must include IT management and the
provision of the funds necessary to ensure that vital infrastructure
is reliable.
Managers who don't make provisions for IT budget items experience
stress when unbudgeted costs start to roll in as they inevitably
do.
- Ignorance of the many skill levels and specialties
in the IT Industry.
It is not important to know what the skill levels are, but
most important to know that there are many skill levels and
specialties in the industry.
The average business person has no possible way of gauging
a person’s or companies IT technical skills. This is because
only a person of equal or greater technical capability
can assess technical skill. A little like asking a Lawyer to
assess the knowledge and skills of Doctor.
This point is also relevant when planning major software purchases
or implementations.
Assuming that Software engineers or software companies
are capable of advising on broader network issues is a mistake.
Software engineers and Network Engineers are as diverse as Civil
and Mechanical Engineers.
Software providers should work in consultation with the network
administrator\ network engineer simply because their application
lives inside the network.
-
Staff who dabble or hide in IT.
A little bit of knowledge can be dangerous. This is very true
in IT.
Staff members or managers who dabble in the IT are often much
more productive doing what they do best, making money for the
business instead of using their time to dabble in the IT.
We often come across businesses where a staff member with a
little knowledge hides in IT by dedicating unnecessary time
to superficial tasks and so called reporting making it look
as though what they are doing is important. Some managers are
easily fooled. Only a person of equal or higher technical skill
can see through such facades.
• If you have the right people looking after your networks
they will do a job in a fraction of the time that that it would
take a dabbler who may be highly skilled in other areas.
-
Fail to ensure a reliable back up solution is in place.
Retrieving lost data is expensive and there are no guarantees
of success.
Microsoft statistics show that most businesses that suffer
a major data loss through hardware or other failure go broke
with in two years of that event.
-
Allowing multiple administrators on a network.
This is usually done for convenience sake. The risks involved
in doing this are very high because you lose accountability.
A suitably qualified administrator should be appointed and all
changes and installations should be passed through that individual.
If you do have a local administrator that person should be directed
to work under a responsible network engineer. Anything
with two heads is a monster. Seniority in these situations
should always be skill based.
A server network is not a PC. Simple changes if performed by
those with out knowledge can have multiple consequences which
can de stabilize a network and cost thousands of dollars to
rectify. It is your own interests to ensure that there is one
administrator and that no one else has the administrator access
codes.
If the network has been set up correctly and is stable any
changes required should be reasonably minor in both time and
cost.
- Choosing IT support because it's cheaper.
You can't cut corners where IT is concerned. You pay for skills
so it is problematic to compare technical services on price alone.
-
Buying consumer machines for business use.
There are two channels of distribution with-in the IT
industry. Consumer electronics distributed through retail outlets.
The business channel distributed through industry resellers
servicing business.
Usually specific models are unique to each channel and not available
cross channel.
One simple but important difference is that the operating system
installed on retail machines is normally the HOME EDITION. If
you are buying computers for a business environment you should
avoid Home Edition operating systems because
they have only very limited networking ability. They cannot
be installed onto a domain.
Businesses that buy the home edition thinking that they are
saving $100 usually have to pay up to $300 later for a new operating
system plus installation costs, once they need the machine attached
to the domain.
-
The SATA server.
SATA servers are a great solution for small organisations
with just a couple of users. They are much cheaper in fact they
can be purchased for about the same money that would buy a reasonable
PC.
The SATA technology is designed to provide data at
high speed in short bursts. This is fine for one
or two users but as soon as the number of users increases to
five or more the demands put on the machine become continuous
and the technology is unable to reliably deliver, the system
slows down.
SCSI on the other hand is triple the price but is designed to
deliver data at high speeds continuously.
If you want high performance and a cheaper longer term solution,
your only choice is to use SCSI .
-
Purchasing server installations by obtaining competing
quotations.
Get three quotes and choose the middle priced quote.
Sounds like smart business but it's actually the opposite.
With IT, there really is no advantage to obtaining
multiple quotations unless you know the abilities of all the
individuals and ensure that each quote has the same content.
If you were buying a commodity that demonstrated constant properties
whether you buy it in one place or another sure! A competing
quotation makes sense.
You should not base such decisions on price but on the ability
of the company to provide a successful solution. Once you are
satisfied that they can produce a successful outcome you may
compare differing technical proposals, but be aware that each
proposal will have positive and negative features and the cheaper
proposals normally have more limitations. If you have a company
that you trust, it is better to ask them to revise the technical
specifications of a quote to lower the price.
Many server quotes are also incomplete. Unless you know what
to look for you wouldn't spot it.
For instance, there are dozens of items and systems with-in
a server environment required to be configured. All quotes should
exhibit a detailed list of these items that will be included
for the price.
-
Neglect. Its working alright at the moment.
Business Information Systems like any other machinery require
maintenance and attention.
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The most common IT mistakes businesses can make...
1.) Not having an IT plan or budget for the year - our workplaces are now inseparably reliant on IT. When a businesses IT fails ..... [more]
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