You know, we’ve been in this IT support game a long time.
We’d like to think we’ve seen and fixed every IT issue it is possible to have.
It still surprises us how many businesses attempt to cope without a proper IT management system in place, whether that is battling on with a make-shift in-house solution or not having anything significant at all.
If you’re a small business owner or manager reading this article, you’re probably concerned whether you’re currently doing enough to protect the integrity of your business’ IT infrastructure.
Perhaps you’ve just had a lucky escape or you’d like to prepare yourself for what might be around the corner.
But to give you an idea of the most likely IT challenges you will face at some point, as a small business owner, here is our top five list.
1. Cybersecurity Threats
Example Scenario: Ransomware Attack
An employee in your small accounting firm receives a seemingly legitimate email from a client, asking them to open an attached document. Without realizing it, the document was infected with ransomware. Upon opening it, the malicious software encrypted all the firm’s files on both local machines and your shared network drive. The attackers demand $50,000 in cryptocurrency to unlock the files, threatening that failure to pay would result in permanent data loss.
You don’t need us to tell you the immediate impact of such a situation. In an instant you’ll lose access to all your data. Client records, financial documents, tax filings, and business communications all become inaccessible.
With employees unable to perform their daily tasks, you’ll miss deadlines and leave customers in the dark. Your business is effectively paralyzed. The effect on the goodwill from your existing clients and long term reputation is incalculable.
If, however, you had an enterprise-grade cybersecurity system in place, that email may not have even made it to your inbox in the first place.
Even with the small chance that it does, a robust and comprehensive data backup and system restore program would have you back up an running again in hours – not days or weeks.
Disaster averted.
2. Data Backup and Recovery Failures
Example Scenario: Unmanaged Backup System
Your small creative agency with 10 employees is working on multiple client projects, including time-sensitive campaign materials, promotional designs, and social video content. You store all project files on a local server and rely on scheduled daily backups to an external hard drive. However, you never tested whether the backup process was working correctly.
One day, your local server suffers a major hardware failure. The hard drive has crashed, making all project files, ongoing work, and client-related data inaccessible. No worries, you’ll just restore the data from your backup system to a replacement server. However, you find out that the backups have been failing for several months now without anyone noticing. The company has just lost months of work, including active and archived projects.
Your company is forced to redo months of work from scratch. Deadlines had to be extended, and clients became frustrated due to the delays. You lose significant amounts of money on the job redos. Some clients, particularly those with urgent deadlines, decided to terminate their contracts and move to other design firms, resulting in a loss of business.
If, however, you have a regular backup monitoring and testing system in place, you will have a complete system failure redundancy procedure and none of the above would apply.
Automated cloud-based backup solutions with version control and successful backup execution notifications will keep you aware of any issues immediately.
And for those who require a more resilient data storage strategy, duel cloud storage and RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) backup systems, will help even the most anxious business sleep comfortably at night.
Disaster averted.
3. Outdated Software and Hardware
Example Scenario: Running Outdated Version of Windows on Old Machines
Your small legal firm has been using the same computers, software, and network infrastructure for over seven years. The firm relies on older desktop computers running an outdated version of Windows, as well as legacy case management software that hasn’t been updated in several years. Initially, your hardware and software worked well, but as technology advanced, you began experiencing various issues.
Your outdated computers struggle to handle newer, more resource-intensive software (such as cloud-based document management and video conferencing). Your employees regularly face crashes, slow load times, and system freezes, significantly slowing down work processes.
Your case management software is incompatible with newer productivity tools and cloud-based services. It’s all causing inefficiencies in collaboration and productivity. Your staff are getting restless.
If, however, you were partnered with an experienced IT support team, they would have front-run the issues you are encountering and helped upgrade your IT requirements to meet the resource challenges of today.
Your MSP provides regular hardware inspections, software updates, and system monitoring to prevent future issues. The firm introduced a policy where computers, servers, and critical software are replaced or updated every 3-5 years. This policy included budgeting for future upgrades, ensuring that systems remain current and aligned with evolving business needs.
The result was a more efficient, secure, and competitive business operation that is aligned with your client expectations and modern technological standards. Your staff are a lot happier too.
Disaster averted.
4. Insufficient Technical IT Support
Example Scenario: Printer Connectivity Issues
Your small accounting firm is preparing for the busy tax season. You rely heavily on printing client forms, contracts, and financial reports. However, you have an ongoing issue where the office printer frequently loses connection to the network, making it impossible for employees to print documents from their computers. The problem seems random — sometimes the printer works fine, but other times it will go offline or refuse to accept print jobs from certain computers.
Since you don’t have an in-house IT team, your employees constantly try to troubleshoot the problem themselves by restarting the printer, reconnecting to the Wi-Fi, or rebooting their computers. It’s taking a considerable amount of time out of their day and causing frustration. Over time, multiple team members are affected, leading to an aggregate loss of productivity and worry about missed deadlines.
If, however, you had a managed IT services partner on your side, any printer issue would be solved immediately. Your on-call IT expert could simply troubleshoot the issue in minutes remotely over the phone or zip down to your office in person.
There would be no need to struggle on yourselves. Everyone can get back to work quickly and meet all required deadlines with minimal stress.
Disaster averted.
5. Internet Speed and Connectivity Issues
Example Scenario: Intermittent Internet Connectivity
Your small dental practice relies on the internet for several essential functions – including patient scheduling, billing, electronic health records (EHR), communication with insurance companies, and digital imaging for X-rays.
One morning, the practice begins experiencing internet connectivity issues. Your Wi-Fi signal keeps dropping out intermittently, and when it does work, the connection is slow and unreliable.
With the internet down, staff can’t access the system to check or modify appointments. New patients are calling to make appointments have to be put on hold while staff manually track availability on paper, causing delays and confusion.
It has created a potential nightmare of double-booking and scheduling errors. Your practice managers are unable to send reminders or confirm appointments via email.
This one issue has created a dangerous cocktail of potential loss of revenue, erosion of patient trust and satisfaction and loss of employee morale.
If, however, you had a managed IT services partner looking out for you, any potential internet issues could be solved immediately. An IT expert could zip down to your practice in person to inspect your router and access points, and even install a secondary internet solution that would kick automatically should your primary one fail.
Proactive monitoring would even identify any potential WIFI or internet connectivity issues brewing before they surface.
Disaster averted.
Summary
Well there you have it. The top 5 most common IT issues faced by small businesses (at least in what we see day to day).
All 5 of them have the potential to significantly impact your business productivity and none of them should be overlooked.
If you think you can see a situation similar to one mentioned above brewing in your company, and would like to put some contingencies in place now before they become a more significant problem, talk to Rapid IT today.
Our solutions consultants are more than happy to put together an IT support package for your company that takes the hard work out of IT management.
With Rapid IT on your side, you can once again get down to the business or working on your business while we handle the IT.
IT Management. Click, click. Done.