One mistake that we see clients make is the use of “Average Joe IT guy” to handle their small business technology needs instead of a professional IT support service.

Average Joe may seem fine at first, when you just need a new email address set up or have a simple IT need. But as soon as anything slightly complex comes up, companies are often left on their own, because Average Joe can’t handle it.

Who is “Average Joe IT Guy?”

It’s usually a friend or family member who enjoys working with technology and may help people out on the side in his spare time, but Average Joe isn’t an IT professional with the backing of other IT pros behind him.

Business owners will usually start working with Average Joe because they already know him or her through friends or family and may think they’re keeping costs low while giving business to someone they know. 

The risk comes in because today’s businesses are only as good as their technology, so when it’s down or inefficient, that’s directly reflected in a company’s bottom line. That's where you'll start to see the value in paying for truly professional IT support.

If you’ve been working with an Average Joe IT guy, you’ll want to read on to see just what you’re risking by not entrusting your technology to a professional managed services provider. 

Why It’s Important to Have Professional IT Support

How exactly is your business at risk if you have your cousin who does IT on the side handle your technology needs?

Here are some of the risks of using an Average Joe vs a Managed IT Services Pro.

Availability When You Need Help

If you’re working with an Average Joe that does IT on the side along with his normal 9 to 5 job, availability when you need IT help can be a problem.

If you have an IT emergency in the morning, you may have to wait until after hours that night until they’re available. That means more costly downtime for you because instead of having a managed IT provider that has a team of professionals available when you need them, you’re having to work around Average Joe’s schedule.

Expertise for Multiple IT Issues

Working with a single person for your IT needs, means there’s more of a chance that that individual will hit a wall when it comes to an issue beyond their skillset, leaving you to have to seek out another option.

Managed IT service providers have a team of well-trained technology professionals that all bring a unique set of skills to the table. Here at Digital Crisis, we offer professional IT support and have a combined experience of over 20 years and our staff is able to solve just about any technical problem you have at your home or business.

Cybersecurity Expertise & Safeguards

A data breach or malware infection can easily put a company out of business if they don’t have the capacity to address the threat right away and protect its data.

An Average Joe may be able to help you install an antivirus program, but when it comes to advanced phishing protections, firewall settings, and cloud security, they’re often out of their depth, leaving you at risk because your cybersecurity defenses aren’t what they need to be.

Managed services providers keep up with all the latest cyber threats and cybersecurity solutions, perform regular IT audits, and are well versed in the endpoint and network protections needed to keep modern businesses secure from a breach.

Mitigating Downtime

When companies work with Average Joe IT guy, it’s typically on a break/fix basis. Meaning, that instead of their technology being taken care of proactively, they call Average Joe when something needs to be fixed.

This is much less efficient and more costly because it results in more downtime than proactive and professional IT support. The average cost of downtime for a business is $10,000 per hour. 

Managed IT service providers put monitoring and ongoing management in place on your devices, so they stay optimized and any potential issues are identified and addressed long before they result in downtime.

Disaster Planning & Recovery

Another problem with a reactive Average Joe is that you can be left with big gaps in business continuity because they’re just there to fix something if it goes wrong, not provide risk mitigation consulting.

When you work with a managed IT professional, we see ourselves as an extension of your business. We take the long view, helping you prepare for the future and any unexpected events with things like disaster planning and recovery strategies. 

Improve Your Business by Getting the Professional IT Support You Need

How well your business runs and how profitable it may be is directly related to the health of your technology infrastructure. Digital Crisis can help you ensure your IT is optimized, proactively managed, and completely secure.

Contact us today to schedule a consultation. Call 713-965-7200 or reach us online.

There was already a major move to cloud platforms even prior to the COVID-19 pandemic. The stay-at-home orders just drove home the point of how important it is to use services that allow your business to operate from anywhere.

One of the most popular cloud solutions for businesses in Houston and throughout the world is Microsoft 365.

The platform combines multiple productivity tools into one monthly service. And while many companies move to Microsoft 365 for the hybrid cloud version of Word, PowerPoint, Excel, and Outlook, it has several other tools to power a 21st-century cloud-driven workflow.

It’s important to understand the different tools in Microsoft 365 and how they all connect, otherwise, when you migrate data, you can end up doing it in a way that isn’t very efficient. 

You can think of all the different data “buckets” in the platform as different filing cabinet drawers. When you’re filing paper files and just putting them all in the same drawer without any organizational structure to it, it becomes much more difficult to find what you need. 

When migrating data from on-premises servers, individual computers, and other cloud systems into Microsoft 365, you want to think of the organization in the same way. If you just save all your files into OneDrive, it’s like putting them all in the same drawer, and it’s going to be much more difficult for your team to find what they need.

Knowledge workers spend approximately 2.5 hours each day just searching for information.

The Right Way to Migrate Data into Microsoft 365

Let’s take a look at some of the different data buckets you can use in Microsoft 365, which will help in understanding when to use each one.

• OneDrive: Online file storage, each user is assigned 1TB of storage
• SharePoint: Connected to groups and teams, makes sharing data dynamic
• Teams: Central communication hub, organized by teams, departments, projects, etc.

Companies have many different types of data that are used in different ways. For example, each user has files they usually access regularly, and occasionally need to share. Departments may have files they keep between team members as well as those they share with the entire organization.

These tips will help you accommodate your different data types and migrate data to the area of Microsoft 365 that makes the most sense.

Individual Data to OneDrive 

Employees will have any number of files on their hard drives that they use for their work. Some may be “in progress” documents that aren’t shared until they’re finished. Others may be personal “cheat sheets” they’ve made themselves.

This type of individual data is best migrated to the employee’s personal OneDrive cloud storage account. This allows them to keep them easily assessable, but they don’t get into the way of anyone else. They’re also easy to share via a link as needed.

Internal Department Data to Teams

Let’s take a look at the HR department for this next example. They’ll have certain data they use internally that is either confidential or that would not be of interest to anyone else.

This can include:

• Employee evaluations
• Payroll records or time-off requests
• Logins and links to payroll tax websites

This is all information that can be secured in Microsoft Teams. 

Teams allows you to create a group channel and it can be either public or private. If it’s private that means files shared within that channel are kept private as well.

Teams uses a connection to SharePoint, and when you create a new “team” and make it private it automatically provisions a SharePoint site for that team, which has the same level of security.

Another feature that makes this the perfect place for internal department information is that you can create tabs in Teams with links to often used files, websites, forms, and other assets. Each person on the team can access these shortcuts.

Sharable Company Data to SharePoint

Let’s stick with the HR department. Besides their internal documents, they also have external documents that they need to share with others regularly, like the company employee handbook or a vacation request form.

Having to email these whenever they’re requested is inefficient. Using a SharePoint site is much more efficient and creates a “self-serve” environment for often requested files.

Migrate any sharable resources like employee forms, sales brochures, company newsletters, etc. to a department or subject specific SharePoint site. What this does is allow that department to create a webpage that delivers information dynamically.

SharePoint sites can be used to share information within your company or outside your company. A few ways this can be used for sharing files include:

• Industry-specific sites for clients to download marketing content
• HR department site for employee forms
• Company site with newsletters and company-wide announcements
• Sales department site with downloadable price-lists
• R&D site with product data sheets and use instructions

Get Help with a Smart Migration from Digital Crisis

Don’t risk migrating your data to Microsoft 365 or any other cloud platform the wrong way! Our team of experts can not only ensure your data is migrated smoothly, but that it goes where it needs to for peak efficiency. 

Contact us today to schedule a consultation. Call 713-965-7200 or reach us online.