All SMEs and smaller charities rely on IT, but do not always have the time, skills or knowledge to fix problems when they occur, which can have a negative impact on business performance and productivity. Relying on external help, temporary fixes are often the solution, which doesn’t allow the organisation to understand the true underlying issues. This leads to the external IT team being perceived as a necessary (and often expensive) cost, without really understanding why, or being able to challenge the core problems.

We believe that IT should be seen as a simple utility like water and electricity – inherently reliable and always ON, with added flexibility to grow and adapt as organisations change. At Bongo IT, we offer a set of core services through a simple menu-based approach, such as broadband, email, telephony and general IT support to name a few. We audit current requirements and provide a comprehensive IT Strategy Review, ensuring that customers clearly understand their requirements now and into the future, and only pay for the services they need.

THE CHALLENGE

All organisations rely on IT and as it has become increasingly embedded in how organisations operate, much of this IT is now regarded as being akin to a utility. This is a very reasonable approach with a small business or charity, and it can be relatively easy to connect and work with a few devices.

However, there comes a point where something fails. All too often this happens at just the wrong moment. Time spent trying to 'fix' the IT begins to escalate to the point where the drop in effectiveness or productivity of parts threatens overall operations. A recent research report revealed that, on average, SMEs spend close to 3 hours every week dealing with IT issues, and suggested this was a major issue undermining overall productivity.

THE PROBLEM

The vast majority of IT users have little if any real idea as to how their systems work, they just want them to work wherever and whenever needed. Whilst standalone computers and tablets have reached a reliable state in their development, networks of machines tend to be much less reliable. This is mainly because organisations will have acquired IT hardware, systems and software over a period of many years resulting in compatibility problems.

Those organisations without an in house IT support function have to rely on external help to fix issues so they can get back to doing what they do as quickly as possible. Generally, solutions will be put in place, in the form of a temporary fix that papers over the cracks but quite often simply stores up more problems for the future.

With this approach the organisation never gets the chance to understand the real underlying issues. Furthermore, the IT support team is perceived as a necessary (and expensive) cost, and so they are never encouraged to really get to know the core issues to be addressed.

THE VISION

As more and more organisations migrate towards a relatively small number of core software applications, such as Microsoft Office 365, and hardware become increasingly generic, we believe that IT should be seen as a simple utility like water and electricity - Inherently reliable and always ON.

We also believe that all IT systems and solutions should be inherently flexible, so they can grow and be adapted as the organisation changes over time.

THE SOLUTION

At Bongo IT, we believe the majority of IT problems are a clear result of poor/incorrect setup from the beginning, and a break-fix attitude towards inherent issues. As additional staff and software systems are added to an organisation the applications become increasingly unreliable as conflicts between them multiply.

We offer a comprehensive IT Strategy Review, including an audit of current requirements and issues, to establish where the most important pain points lie. This is followed closely by a clear setting out of the likely future requirements over the next 12-18 months.

We then take the time to configure all machines and related devices to create a robust, scalable framework. For the added comfort of continuing protection and support we offer our 24/7/365 monitoring service.

THE BONGO IT APPROACH

At Bongo IT, we believe that the creation of any long term solution lies in offering a set of core services through a simple menu based approach, including:

• Broadband
• Email
• Telephony
• Computer hardware
• Website maintenance
• General IT Support

This has the major advantage of being immediately understandable to all customers and allows us to be flexible in providing the services only as and when they are required.

View the full White Paper here: https://bongoit.co.uk/white-papers/why-the-ad-hoc-approach-eventually-leads-to-it-issues.html

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