Start with These Three Questions to See If You’re in Over Your Head

Technology is a complete necessity these days. It’s been proven that, by integrating some technology strategically, businesses can solve major operational problems that many smaller businesses and start-ups can’t. Today, we will ask three questions about business tech that any technology-savvy individual should know, and explain why you should know them.

Question #1: Do You Have the Right Technology to Fit your Business’ Needs?

This is a question almost anyone that works for your company can answer, but in the grand scheme of things, are you able to efficiently produce your products using the IT you have in place today? If the answer is no, then you absolutely need to consult with one of our technicians.

If the answer is yes, however, you may be surprised about the big benefits that small improvements to your IT can create. If you think your IT is ship-shape and is working optimally for your business, you’ll likely be surprised when you discover there are several productivity-enhancing options that you haven’t even considered.

Often, our technicians find that businesses are using antiquated hardware and software, paying too much for their services, or not proactively managing their company’s IT, leading to costly downtime and inefficiency. This leads us to our second question:

Question #2: Are Your Servers, Workstations, End Points, Networking, and Security Being Maintained?

You may have a home computer that you don’t manage. You turn it on when you need to use it, and you don’t worry about how efficiently it is running, until it begins to stall, applications close for no apparent reason, and its overall performance starts to lag. If this were to happen with your work computer, you’d have a bit of a problem, right? Now think about how people you pay to work for you feel when their workstation starts to go on the fritz. You didn’t pay a premium price for that machine, after all.

Expecting someone to excel for your company on computers that don’t work properly is like asking a lumberjack to do his job with a steak knife. Sure, it may do the job, but it’s going to take a lot longer and a lot more effort and bother to do it than it should. This is why it is crucial to make sure that all of your organization's workstations, servers, and other hardware are properly maintained, and that the software tools you rely on are patched and up to date.

It typically takes a certain degree of experience to gain the practical knowledge needed to do a job proficiently. Managing technology is no different. You have to know when to move away from a certain technology, when to embrace others, and just about everything about these complex systems in order to keep it maintained well and working for your business. Remember AOL? In retrospect, they should have used their profits to update to broadband. They didn’t - which is why we had to ask if you remembered them. Learning which technology to use and when you need to use it can go a long way toward taking your company to where you want it to go. You can do this with knowledge.

Question #3: Do You Have Access to the Knowledge Your Business Needs?

What hardware do you have? What software do you use? How much do you spend on downtime a month? How much do you spend in printing costs? Questions like these are simple ones that shouldn’t take you long to answer, but when you can’t answer them, or other basic IT questions, you typically find someone that can. At Washington Works, there is one thing that we have in spades: Knowledge about business technology.

When a business owner comes to see us about their technology, we don’t immediately jump into the sales process. The first thing we do is ask questions. Sometimes we do a complete network and infrastructure assessment before we even start to talk about selling anything to you. Our business technology expertise is based on a knowledge of these systems, and finding solutions to problems; and, rest assured, if yours is like many businesses we encounter, you have complications that you’ve encountered that you don’t even consider to be problems.

The difference is that we have the experience and knowledge to provide the value you are looking for from an IT consultant. Call us today at 301-571-5040 to have a conversation that you won’t regret, because it may open your eyes to a way forward.