Making sense out of chaos
Most small businesses these days have some sort of IT suite. It might only be one PC sitting in a home office, but what makes it an IT suite is the sheer number of suppliers and technologies involved in making it work. If we look at a typical small office with five PCs, one server and a network there could very easily be over 10 suppliers and/or major technologies working together: -
Hardware Suppliers
- Operating System (XP, Vista, Windows Server, Mac OS X, etc.)
- Anti Virus and Security (Symantec, McAfee, etc.)
- Backup
- Network cabling and/or wireless
- Uninterruptible Power Supply
- Printers, Copiers and Faxes
Software Suppliers
- Accountancy Software (Sage, QuickBooks, IRIS)
- Core Business Software (Collections, Billing, Account Management, CRM, POS, etc.)
- Reporting and Business Intelligence (Crystal Reports/Server, Business Objects, MS Reporting Services etc.)
Service Suppliers
- Email and Web
- Telephony and Call Monitoring
- Broadband
The list can go on and on. Focus IT can take over management of these technologies and their suppliers in the same way an IT Director of a large company would by grouping them together into three operational areas of IT Support, Business Intelligence (reporting) and Business Analysis.
