Small Business Technology and Information Systems Consulting
If you are a small business owner, you know how difficult it can
be to make decisions about technology investments. Normally,
you don't have the time it takes to research and make informed
decisions about IT for your business. The number of issues and
vendors can be overwhelming. Maybe you rely upon your
brother-in-law or grandchild's advice. Do they really
understand both technology and your business? Typically, they know
one or the other.
As a small business owner, you probably realize that technology
is becoming a more integral aspect of marketing and operating a
small business. While it is true that the use of some computer
technologies can give your business a competitive edge, it is also
true that many technologies and skills are now considered to be
basic business necessities. Communication, data storage,
networking, information processing, and security are just a few
concerns.
In this day and age, bad information technology decisions can
have a negative impact on the bottom line of your small business.
This is especially true if the resources you have to devote to IT
are limited. You need to be able to plan and implement technologies
that will make the most of your budget.
How can we help? In many ways. It can be as basic as helping you
sort through vendors and finding products in a way that keeps your
best interests in the forefront of the process. For example,
let's say that you need to set up a network in your business office
and you go to Joe Cable & Co. to ask them to price a cable system
for you. Does Joe Cable & Co. understand your system needs
from both a business and an IT perspective or just from the cable
side of the house? Is it possible that Joe Cable & Co. are
local value-added resellers for a national cable corporation? If so,
could they recommend another company's cabling system if it was
better for you than the one that they sell? Do you really
understand what Joe Cable & Co. is saying when they mention near-end
crosstalk and channel testing for your new Cat 6 gigabit cable?
We understand how business systems should align with business
goals and we know how to cut through industry jargon. As an
advisor, we can help you find vendors and information technology
products that will work for your small business. Information systems
should work to support your business, not the other way around.
We can help you review potential technology investments and manage
them from a financial, as well as an information technology,
perspective.
The Joe Cable & Co. example illustrates one small way that we can
help you manage technology. We can help you consider whether
to purchase or lease the new computers that you need for your
growing office. At the same time, we can help you consider operating
systems and security issues when deciding whether to implement a
peer-to-peer network or use a domain server. Maybe your salesperson
needs to connect to the office from the road. Not only can we
help you decide whether or not to implement your own VPN, use
Windows 2003 terminal services or GoToMyPC, we can calculate
the payback period on the investment proposals and compare them for
you.
Maybe you need to sell your small business products over the
Internet. That would involve contracting with a Web-based
credit card processor. We can help you plan the return on your
investment as you budget the expected per-item percentage charges,
flat-rate fees, and merchant account fees. We can help you
understand the sales and federal income tax issues as well as the
privacy issues that impact your online business. We can help you
understand how web technologies can improve the reliability and
security of your online small business operations. We can help
you develop a plan for evaluating, purchasing, and implementing
technologies. In short, we can help you make the best of your
IT budget dollars.
Helping business
improve the quality of its accounting information