Introduction

As the Internet and electronic collaboration become more prevalent, Small and Medium businesses are forced to embrace these strategies in order to remain competitive while at the same time not increase their expenses for technology beyond their means. Once a business begins to rely on computerized databases of customer and financial information, email, procurement and supplier data, and an internet presence, downtime and disruptions to the computer systems rapidly impacts productivity. In many cases the entire business activity comes to a halt when the business loses access to its data systems.

With the constant changes to technology and daily development of new security threats, even a small, 5-user network requires ongoing maintenance from a highly-trained technician. But obviously the costs of hiring a full-time IT person are not always feasible, even for companies with 20 to 75 workstations.

Up until now, small business executives had only two options for computer support:

Option #1: This option is the most common; business executives designate the most technically-savvy person on staff to be the make-shift IT manager and only bring in outside help when your “internal guru” runs into a network crisis they can’t solve.

Problem is, you are pulling this person away from the real job you hired them to do AND unless they have the time to stay up-to-date on the latest developments in IT support and management, they don’t have the skills or knowledge required to properly support and secure your network.

This inevitably results in a network that is ill-maintained and unstable, which then results in excessive down-time, overspending on IT support, and expensive recovery costs.

Option #2: This is really foolish but we see it every day; businesses that use their network until it “breaks” and then call in the experts to repair or replace whatever stopped working.

This reactive model of network maintenance is a surefire path to extensive down-time, lost data, and excessive spending on IT support, not to mention major disruptions in staff productivity, sales, cash flow, production, and customer service that can never be recovered.

SPI’s Proactive Performance Program is specifically designed to provide a professionally managed maintenance program, electronically monitor system events and activities, and repair failures before they turn into a major disaster all for a fixed monthly fee.