You can protect yourself from a hurricane by evacuating to dry ground, but what about your business?
Even when you decide to evacuate, you should plan carefully as roads can experience some destruction. Yet, you might not be able to take your business with you. You need a plan for your business as well.
The first thing you should do is to backup your data so it is safe. Many backup to cloud storage. But what about accessing it? Downloading or accessing a couple of files is easy, but if you need to have access to all of your data to operate an application then just having your data files in the cloud won’t be enough.
I know. You might be thinking this hasn’t happened to you and it likely won’t ever happen. But what if it does? How long can your business survive without access to the data?
There are some risks out there that could put your business in serious danger.
Our goal is to share with you some ways in which you can stop feeling the pain when technology fails. There are certain systems and risk management practices that you can have in place to minimize the downside of any technological challenges.
I know this because I have been helping small businesses with their Technology needs for more than 30-years.
Understanding Your IT Needs
The first step of the process is understanding your business philosophy. We need to understand your goals and the resources you have available to attain those goals.
Usually, there is no right or wrong answer. Different businesses have different philosophies of how to operate.
In terms of budgetary constraints, or Financial Philosophy, the two extremes are “If it’s free it’s for me” and on the other end you have “You get what you pay for”.
Do you identify with either of these? You are probally somewhere in the middle. Sometimes free software might be enough and other times you will need to make an investment.
We are here to simplify these type of decisions for you.
- Have you bought a laptop lately?
- How was your process to make the decision?
Most of the time people just buy what they see everyone else buying, not knowing if that is the best option for them.
Many buy Apple laptops. In some cases, it might be overkill because if all you do is browse the internet and use Microsoft Office then you might be better off with a $400-500 range laptop instead of paying $2,000 for a different product.
On the other hand, if you need high-performance, because you use a lot of design tools or complex excel models and spreadsheets, saving some money on the purchase could mean losing a lot of productivity because the equipment is not fulfilling your needs.
For a business, it is important to make the most out of each investment, and you should use the technology assets that allow you to maximize your resources of time and money. This is a situation we all face. So how do we make the decision to invest in the technology that we need to run our business in an efficient and effective way?
At LSNC, we have a system in place that will allow you to understand why we are recommending the services we are recommending to you.
These are the different aspects that we will go over with you to understand where you stand:
- Financial Philosophy: “If it’s free, it’s for me” or “You get what you pay for”
- Infrastructure Philosophy: “Do what it takes to make it work” or “Build a reliable bullet proof system”
- Software Philosophy: “Only use ‘commercial software’” or “Use reliable, customizable open source software”
- Storage Philosophy: “Store everything locally” or “Everything in the cloud”
- Application Philosophy: “Application in-house” or “Use cloud services”
- Security Philosophy: “We don’t have anything anyone would want” or “Fort Knox security”
We can put a custom strategy in place for you to have an ideal technology infrastructure once we know your business philosophies. No two businesses are the same, similarly, no technology infrastructures will be the same. This is why we recommend going through the philosophies as it allows us to collaborate with you and build a custom solution.
Technology Solutions that Save You Money
Our goal is to make this process as easy and transparent as possible.
We have built a technology map for you to easily understand our process and the value we will create for you.
- We partner with you by becoming your IT services team
- Remove the stress of building an optimal network infrastructure
- Allow us to create custom solutions for you that will save you money
“Our fast-growing company has relied on Bob for his outstanding technology support services for more than 10 years. During our recent office relocation, he single-handedly devised and implemented a phone system strategy to keep our lines open and calls flowing when our major phone service provider carrier and others could not.” – Jim Alexander, Chief Operating Officer, Data Smart LLC
Take the first step towards building a bulletproof and reliable network infrastructure for your company.
Lone Star Network Communications is the answer to your technology needs. We have more than 40-years of experience doing technical support in Houston.
We help companies take advantage of the best technology available and will navigate the complex technology decisions for your business so that you can take the stress out of this process.
Let us do what we are good at so that you can grow your business.
Bob Bamburg