We’ve all been there, particularly when dealing with personal consumer affairs. We are unhappy with the service we receive from a great big company that we deal with, like a telecoms provider, an energy supplier or an e-commerce giant. We try to get the company to rectify the situation, we may often find that we are still not satisfied that the outcome is fair.
The world is full of meanings, some explicit and some more subtle. In the language of business, there is a need to project a sense of credibility and trustworthiness. Just like qualifications and certifications are important in establishing the credentials of individuals, organisational accreditation is essential for determining the bona fides of a technology services provider.
Today, boxing is a questionable sport. To many, the risk of serious injury and death to its participants simply makes it unacceptable. To some, it seems anachronistic and it does perhaps belong to a different time because it harks back to the gladiatorial spectacles of an older human civilisation.
That’s a slightly provocative title for this blog. After all, there are two elements here. ‘IT’ refers to the technical bit, the ‘hard’ skills, while ‘Support’ speaks to the ‘soft’ skills of dealing with people, the context of any problem and managing it through to resolution.
For any given problem to be resolved within an acceptable time-frame requires the support person to be able to deliver on both counts equally well.
So why do we make the assertion that there is a greater emphasis on Support skills rather than IT skills?
IT security is a topic of conversation that is likely to be a cause for concern for companies of all sizes. There is a perception that larger businesses have superior security, but this isn’t always true. Just ask telecoms giant TalkTalk who were hacked in 2015 and had significant amounts of data stolen, leading to some customers falling victim to fraud.
This shows that it isn’t necessarily size that determines the vulnerability of a company to an IT security breach. It’s the perceived risk, the culture of the business and the security measures that are in place. Big businesses may be at least as vulnerable as their mid-market and SMB counterparts when they don’t have the right safeguards in place.
In January it was nationally reported that Lincolnshire County Council (LCC) had fallen victim to a ransomware attack which rendered it unable to access systems and data for a week. Across the authority, as many as 5,000 staff had to revert to manual processes using pen and paper.
The cybercriminals had performed data ‘kidnapping’ by infecting LCC systems and encrypting the data. The data remained on the organisation’s infrastructure but was rendered inaccessible. The ransom demand for its safe release by providing the decryption key was set at the princely sum of $500 (£350).
Today’s tablets are powerful, flexible and handy computing devices. It’s hard to think that the first tablet to gain popular mainstream acceptance, the original Apple iPad, only debuted on April 3rd 2010.
Since then the market has exploded with devices from the big hardware manufacturers as well as those from hundreds of new market entrant brands. There are a lot of size options and the smallest 3/4G capable ones blur the line between the phone and the tablet – quite literally where does the tablet end and the smartphone begin?
Tablet computers are ubiquitous and seem to have conquered practically all markets. But can you run a business from one?
Not so very long ago most businesses relied on tape-based backup and Disaster Recovery (DR) processes. For many, this was highly unsatisfactory, and their overall perceptions of tape backups were shaped by problems such as:
Today’s backup technologies have revolutionised speed and reliability and transformed disaster recovery, and now businesses can be returned to full operational capability in as little as 20 minutes when using good backup and DR solutions.
The difficult few years that followed the credit crunch meant the recruitment sector had to endure some tough times. Reduced hiring and increased candidate numbers as headcount were trimmed made the sector one of the first to be hit. When it’s a buyer’s market, clients bargain hard and squeeze margins. But that’s business and you know you would if things were the other way round!
The recession drove many recruiters to re-evaluate their systems and processes. Cloud and online technologies offered the opportunity to cut costs, improve efficiency and gain competitive advantage. Specialised line-of-business applications for the recruitment sector, often integrating software automation functionality, transformed the back and front office for many.
In a company of perhaps 20 people or so, many will have taken the view that staff numbers mean there is enough work to recruit an IT manager. However, what do you do before you reach this size?
Many small companies choose to engage external consultants to provide hands-on support. Often these are solo operators, one-man bands. While they may be competent and well-intentioned, there are a number of inherent problems which may prevent them from responding with the appropriate service levels you need to run your business.
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