In order to maintain an in-house department, the skills needed to support your business extends far beyond a desktop support person. For an IT person to be successful, they need to have the right training, supervision and a number of costly technology tools. Knowledge of your infrastructure (both today and with projected growth goals), disaster recovery/ back-up solutions, 24/7 monitoring, routine patching and maintenance, Cyber Security protections in place and availability when something goes wrong typically means hiring multiple people with different skill sets and salary grades. This is a very costly endeavor for most businesses and municipalities.  Leading that team to ensure they are doing the right things for your organization is another consideration.

Chances are you know of an organization that has been hit with either Ransomware, a compromised email account or a costly spear phishing crime. We hear real stories every day.  It is happening all around us and the bad actors are not just focused on larger institutions. Small and medium businesses, non-profits and municipalities are a target and the threats are evolving all the time. We can de-mystify Cyber Security best practices and help build a plan that will strengthen your protections in a way that fits your budget and team.  We will perform an assessment of your organization’s “current state” of IT Security strengths and weaknesses and offer a plan on how to move to higher ground and peace of mind.

• Hiring and finding IT talent is difficult and expensive. 
• Skillset Needs: The skills needed to support your organization properly quickly extends beyond a desktop support person. To do it right, your organization may need  multiple people to handle the complexities presented in managing networks (firewalls, switches, cloud services, servers, wireless, vendor management), Cyber Security, end user support, and planning.
• Supervising IT talent is also difficult and very expensive. The leader should have an impressive set of specialized skills themselves in order to properly assess and effectively move an organization forward.
• Specialized Tools and Licenses: monitoring/automated maintenance & patching, anti-virus, spam filtering, Security Tools (SEIM, SOC, MDR, EDR), ticketing systems, two-factor tools, password vaults, hardware licensing.  Tools exist today that were not even possible a few short years ago.  Those tools are expensive and require training and expertise to use them.
• Projects/Initiatives:  need extra help short-term and would prefer not to hire or expand staffing.
• Need “boots on the ground” because your home office is located far away.

We can customize a solution that fits your Organization’s particular needs, such as providing all the routine (behind the scenes maintenance) and be a resource for your internal Help Desk person if they need an added layer of support. If you need end user support because you have an internal IT leader, no problem!  We will work with you to determine how best to augment and enhance what you have in place, at a fraction of the cost of hiring another person to your team.

You have reached a size where a major, unexpected outage resulting in downtime could lead to devastating losses and you are apprehensive your organization is vulnerable.  Here are a few facts we’ve learned through trainings we’ve attended:

• 70% of businesses who suffer a serious data loss are out of business within 2 years;
• 60% of small companies go out of business within 6 months of a cyberattack; and
• 43% of cyberattacks target small businesses.

Many small organizations have an in-house go-to person that helps with all things computer related. This works in the beginning. It’s cost-effective and easy. Usually, the in-house expert has a primary role in another capacity and helps out when someone needs desktop support. Soon, it grows to be too much for that individual both in time requirements and skills needed. As the business grows more complex, mistakes and costly downtime occurs more frequently and frustration sets in amongst the team and leaders. Customers feel the impact and your business suffers. 

As organizations grow, planning for capital expenses and investing in the right infrastructure becomes more important and challenging for your leaders. You need a trusted advisor (a CIO) to provide input and guidance on the direction to support your technology needs.