Connecticut's IT Managed Services Blog

Thinking of getting a new or re-do for your company's web presence?  Here are seven ‘Must Haves’ for your small business website. 

Your website represents your business, so building and maintaining it need to be of primary concern as a business owner. We often find business owners struggling with their websites saying things like: "My website looks great, but I am not able to convert" or "I invested so much into creating my website, but I don't get many hits.” These things are very common pains faced by businesses, especially small business. If you aren’t sure where to start your site improvement project, this post will get you rolling in the right direction with seven key areas you need to pay attention to when it comes to your website.

With a lot of small and medium-sized (SMB) businesses, this scenario is an everyday reality. They are typically strapped from a cost standpoint to expand their IT staff—if they have a staff at all. Having the right people to assist is a big differentiator for curbing mistakes. In fact, Gartner projects that through 2015 people will be responsible for 80% of all technology failures. This can be due to a variety of reasons, including not having a realistic workload plan in place or underestimating how much labor is needed to prevent these problems from taking place.

To reduce management complexity while keeping costs down, SMBs need the ability to do more using fewer resources, and that’s  where managed services has turned into a viable option. With a managed services provider, businesses can either gain timely assistance to augment an overworked staff or have a full-blown IT department at their disposal. Either way, managed services can help bridge the gaps.

The SMB market is definitely catching on. According to Techaisle, the SMB Managed Services market is projected to grow to $44 billion until 2016, at a rate of roughly 12% growth in that span. Of particular note is that remote management monitoring services will increase to $15 billion during the same timeframe.

Managed Services can help SMBs:

• Free up resources that are tied up in IT labor for more impactful business planning and decision-making
• Enlist the aid of managed service providers (MSPs) that have experience helping other like businesses
• Can provide access and scaling to the latest technology at a reduce cost
• Gain financing and leasing options to alleviate the need for large, upfront investments

Recently,  I spent a full day in Washington, D.C.  attending the sold out inaugural 2013 Datto Partner Conference.  The vibe was similar to the first VMware Partner conference I attend years ago. 

A keynote from CEO Austin McChord kicked off the event; he is completely unpolished, which is refreshing, as is the obvious fact that he is totally immersed in every detail of his business.  He rattles off facts, figures, and details.  Technical, business, and sales related data roll off his lips at a rapid-fire pace.  What did I learn? Here are some of the key things I took away from his talk:

• Datto is exploding – 200+ employees; 112 of which were hired last year
• Datto has 8000+ partners – wow!  Lots more Managed Service Providers (MSP) and IT Service Providers than I thought existed
• The company is totally focused on the channel, particularly the MSP market
• New MSP User Interface has been rolled out, making it easier for us to quickly setup and troubleshoot devices for our clients
• Direct-2-Tech was introduced, this means when you escalate an issue, we go directly to the tech that can solve the problem – this is a great things for NSI, and NSI clients.
• Tech support is 24/7/365, when clients need help, help is there.
• Brand new software allows us to show our clients the incremental changes that are happening
• HIPAA compliance  -  Datto is compliant and enables NSI to continue offering backup in regulated environments for clients needing this

The summary from Austin’s keynote for me was this – Datto gets it. They understand what we need to be the best possible ITsupport service provider to our clients.  Additionally, they enable us to offer enterprise class services to the smallest of businesses;  it is as simple as that.  Why that’s a big deal: 

According to the U.S. Census of 2010:

The Cloud.  It's the place to be.  Perhaps Sir Richard Branson will find a way for us to tour the cloud.  If anyone can find a way, it's him. 

We use the cloud when we put gas in our car.  We use the cloud to pay our bills (even if you are sending a paper check, funds are transferred through the cloud by the banks and corporations that process payments).