The Case for an IT Specialist

Would you hire your handyman to replace your boiler or even rewire your home? Probably not, so why wouldn’t you use a specialist for strategic IT projects at your company?

Many small businesses have their “IT guy” – often someone at the local Staples or an individual who is more tech savvy than the rest of the staff. Perhaps they have a small, general IT support company that manages day to day issues with desktops or end user software like Excel or Office or is on call when something goes wrong.

Such relationships are useful in that they are more cost effective and may even be based on the relationship the IT person has with the staff, but what happens when, say you need to setup a new office and need to seamlessly integrate different systems together? Better yet, you need a disaster recovery plan or are planning to move more functions to the cloud. Your IT person may say they can do all of the above, but overall it’s just not what they do best. A specialist or an organization with professionals that are experts in implementing these and other strategic solutions is whom you need to work with.

So when is it time to hire a specialist? Edward Solomon, Co-founder of Net at Work recently wrote on this topic for the SmartCEO Thought Leadership Series. Read the full article here on SmartCEO.com.