“Can my IT problems be solved by having someone onsite all the time to take care of problems?”  This has been the theme of multiple conversations I’ve had with great organizations this week.  What is the answer? Yes! And also No!  After working with companies for 21 years, we have found that there truly is an art to getting issues solved and calming down IT environments so that teams can get their work done. 

Yes!  You do need someone who understands your environment and can quickly respond so that your workforce can get back to work.  For some of our clients, this means having an internal staff member on their team who is their IT first phone call.  This person is usually able to get things taken care of quickly and get the issue logged into our ticketing system so that we can keep up with the data around issues in their environment.  We love our co-managed clients like this, and we have plenty of other clients who rely on Affinity to be that frontline for computer issues.  For these clients, Affinity’s team responds quickly to solve problems, providing workarounds if need be.  Our responsive support team relies heavily on our documentation tools so that we bring the correct solution for each particular client as quickly as possible.  So, either way it happens, YES! companies need someone to take care of their issues in an efficient manner.

But why is the answer also NO!?  Well, for many companies, if someone is running around taking care of their issues (think whack a mole), then they assume they have what they need.  Problems get solved, right?  Right.  But just the immediate, reactive problems.  It is Affinity’s experience that when you can identify an issue on the surface, then there is more than likely a bigger issue under the surface that is not visible, kind of like an iceberg. 

Do you know who is taking care of underlying issues in your work environment?  The front line, reactive resource – whether your employee or Affinity’s support team -- is more than likely doing an awesome job, but they are busy getting your team back to work.  So who is ensuring that these issues don’t happen again, causing more interruptions?  Is there a process in place for eliminating all the “ticky-tack” issues?  Besides business interruption, IT issues can also be a symptom of bigger business risk, even cybersecurity exposure.  Just like other areas in your business - from payroll to HR to production - are there repeatable processes in place to ensure that the technology aligns with industry standards?  How do you know?  Is there a score or a way to know if you are in-compliance or out of compliance with where you need to be or where other businesses operate?  More than likely, most everything that touches your product or employees or clients also touches technology.

So YES! it is important to have someone who takes care of your company’s technology problems, but NO! that is not enough to actually solve your IT problems and risk.  To truly solve IT issues, reducing IT interruptions and business risk, there needs to be a combination of reactive, quick help, with resources and processes dedicated to looking below the surface at deeper risk and ensuring alignment with industry standards.  If there is not a system in place and if there is not visibility into this system, then it is probably not happening. 

As I mentioned, we have been having a lot of conversations about this with some great companies lately.  Please don’t hesitate to reach out if you would like to discuss this as well.  We love to help.