Today we’ll talk about how a lack of awareness, lack of experience in IT can affect the development of small businesses.
Elementary ignorance of the sphere, the desire to get everything and as quickly as possible can lead to a number of problems that will not only damage the business, but also will not budge it.
Most small business IT infrastructures have one major drawback – they are not scalable. It is not at all meant by the presence of a large number of computer systems or something like that. The problem is that the architecture initially laid down creates disproportionately more problems and costs with the growth of the business than it brings benefits, but it should be the other way around.
For a young business, the planning horizon is usually limited to a year, sometimes even a couple of months, and building an IT infrastructure is far from the most serious problem. If there is a quick and cheap solution, albeit with side effects in the future, the business will choose it sooner, more expensive for a week, but correct from the point of view of future prospects, which will have to wait. And there is nothing wrong with that, this is a familiar situation, but it’s only bad when this kind of practice continues after the business has matured and is confidently moving forward. Agree that this is strange: there is money for development, but there is no development itself.
Here are the main mistakes that entrepreneurs face when working with technical tools in their business:
1 The wrong approach to using technology
In a small business, equipment is usually bought and changed as needed and possible, and this is done in exactly the quantities and qualities in which it is needed right here and now. The models of computer equipment that are on the market change, as we know, sometimes several times a year, being replaced by newer or cheaper ones. In such conditions, in small companies, the emergence of a wide variety of computer equipment is inevitable, when it is impossible to find two identical servers or even two identical computers on the network. We are not talking about the lack of aesthetic part of all this, so this is not a particular problem, as long as the emerging maintenance tasks are purely “one-off” in nature.
As the business grows, different equipment models, in addition to a linear increase in maintenance tasks, create additional difficulties in planning and implementing changes, building reserves and even modernizing a computer park, requiring accurate accounting and analysis of each element. All this can significantly increase costs and negatively affect the quality of the work performed. It can take years for the equipment used to standardize before the equipment purchased earlier reaches its useful life.
In order not to once face a choice: to throw out old equipment or overpay for its maintenance, a growing business needs when purchasing computer equipment to think first of all about the issue of total cost of ownership, and not immediate needs. Carrying out annual or at least quarterly purchases of computer equipment will significantly reduce the “diversity” and thereby simplify both the tasks of regular maintenance and planning and making changes in the network.
Also, the above disadvantages include:
- Non-functional backup software. People usually do not copy important documents in everyday life, because they are so used to it. They can follow this habit when starting a business. Lack of backups is a guarantee of impending troubles. This is not a business-like approach that can lead to problems later on.
- Misunderstanding of the software. A small business purchases software that is recommended by a partner in a given situation. Often, money is invested completely uselessly – it’s just that someone shamelessly makes sales in B2B and it turns out that the business owner must personally understand what he buys and whether he really needs it. Here is such a deception. By the way, about investing money – crypto tips will help you save money. Small business owners will certainly need money.
- Lack of data storage structure on the file server. A file server in a small business is often a kind of “network drive” with a large number of folders in the root and thousands of documents, the purpose of which is no longer remembered and understood by few people.
- When a company grows up, unpleasant situations can begin on such a file server: someone will select some of the folders and move them somewhere else, someone will overwrite a document that another employee has been working on for a week, or even delete something, as it seems to him unnecessary. Regular backups can correct the situation, but do not increase the trust in the resource. It is not possible to distribute access rights within the existing structure of the file server, since everyone needs all folders. The only way out in this case is to design and launch a new file server, transfer the necessary data from the old one to it, and archive the old one.
- If you create a centralized storage of documents in your company, then it is best for you to use the following advice: work out its structure and distribution of access rights right away so that employees can enter and change only their data (or the data of their department), so it will be convenient for everyone, moreover, it is safe. The structure of the file server and the distribution of access rights is not a question of trust or mistrust in employees, but primarily a question of structuring data storage, when each employee is sure that his work will not disappear due to someone’s mistake or inattention and knows who is responsible for the mess in a particular folder.
- Consumer solutions instead of specialized ones. A typical home printer will not be able to cope with the need to print in support of an entire office. Yes, it is cheaper than specialized office equipment, but more expensive in the consequences will cost you the repair, maintenance and problems due to the choice of a mass consumer solution instead of professional tools.
2 Low qualification of employees
Small business employees are usually carefully selected by the entrepreneur and are usually able to work on a home computer. But almost always, they don’t know how to work properly on business-grade devices, which suffers from the business itself. A professional must go through several years of education and training, because only then he will understand how commercial and industrial software should work with maximum efficiency. If we touch upon the topics of qualifications, then we can say that saving on educational programs and advanced training always leads to a situation when something breaks down, data is lost or the whole system works at once.
3 Savings on security
Even if the software is used for business purposes only, it is still susceptible to malware. As soon as you connect to the Internet without proper protection and your business, your database and a lot of confidential data are vulnerable to attacks of various sizes, a data leak can occur that you certainly do not like. It is worthwhile to competently approach this issue and take care of a reliable protector of your servers, so as not to regret it in the future.
Conclusion:
We hope you will use the advice above and arrange your business favorably by correctly adjusting all IT issues. We wish you good luck and success in your endeavor!
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