In these times that we find ourselves, as business owners, realizing there’s a lot of change and pivoting quickly.
We’re realizing that things we’ve thought about doing with our businesses, we’ve been forced to accept. One of the largest of which is working remotely, having our staff not be physically in our office spaces. They’re not sitting at their desk, they’re not anywhere close to us. They’re now working from home if we’re fortunate to still have business going on.
COVID has harshly illustrated the costs of staying the course with Information Technology (IT). We are all seeing the results of fiscally responsible actions like:
• Putting a freeze on spending
• Keeping current working systems in place
• Not addressing changes in the market
• Avoiding the whole work-from-anywhere thing
Potatoes in Teams?
Meeting online has many positive qualities and certainly in times of challenges can be very helpful. For our team at Lead IT Consulting we have a new cadence of meeting online twice a week. As a result, we are staying connected, keeping up on what is new plus knowing what is happening. All very serious and at time a little tense. It was in between meetings when I heard about a person who became a potato in a meeting and then I was in a meeting where a person changed their background. I just had to find out how to do this and now I want to share that with you. In this example I am using Microsoft teams as that is what we have so your mileage might vary with other tools.
When it becomes clear that your IT staff is just too overworked, one common solution was to bring in outsourced labor as an extra pair of ‘hands.” These IT consultants, for instance, may be relied upon to lend a hand to overwhelmed IT employees on a temporary basis.
Remember the old days and the old ways of doing business when only sales contributed to a company’s profitability? When progress meant minimizing costs on everything else required to support sales? And as for IT, once we became convinced we couldn’t function without at least some technology, we accepted living with the costs while keeping them as low as possible.
Putting a freeze on spending makes saving on expenses a sure thing, right? Don’t bet on it.
When it comes to technology, doing nothing can get pricey. Unless you are managing for change—anticipating the future and planning for new and updated software, systems and hardware—you’re on a tear toward a budget-blowing crash.
You know your budget to keep necessary technology up and running? How’s that working for you? My opinion is it’s the word “necessary” that has many businesses overspending on the ever-increasing pileup of technology chores.
When’s the last time you sent your five-headed IT guy, aka Jack-of-all-trades, to a training class to learn about the latest technology? How sweaty and queasy do you feel when poor Jack has the flu and should really go home? And what about vacations? When Jack, so deserving of a break, finally takes one, do you sleep at night or lie there worrying whether he’s keeping his mobile handy? Do you reach for your own smart phone, fingers itching to hit speed dial just in case tomorrow you need to?
I’m willing to bet no one reading this blog is so focused on the future they’ve forgotten how tough the economy has been on business in the not-so-distant past. Four years ago a lot of previously healthy companies began downsizing in terms of people and production when it was the last thing they wanted to do. If you were lucky enough to avoid cutting salaries, chances are you went along with everyone else and slammed the brakes on spending.
I don’t have to tell you why one person shouldn’t be solely responsible for processing the mail, handling the bookkeeping, signing checks and making deposits. Everyone knows the business risks inherent in solo access to critical information. However responsibilities are divided, we also rely on a documented system of checks and balances to maintain security and keep the business running smoothly and profitably. Businesses fail when they don’t keep accurate and accessible financial records.
