The IT industry is brimming with so many IT guys and experts with various specialties these days. You would think it’s an easy task hiring one for your company. Finding an IT guy is not the problem. Finding a competent, reliable, and affordable IT professional can be challenging for many businesses. When you think you have found the right person, issues start to come up, and you have no choice but to fire them and start the search again. 

There are several possible reasons why companies end up firing their IT guys. Here are the Top Five issues most commonly cited by company owners and why these issues can be very detrimental to a business. 

Poor Response Time

A timely response is important in most aspects of a business. Particularly when it comes to the crucial areas where downtime can be costly or cause the operations to stop, and because of this reason, you should avoid working with IT specialists that are consistently late for scheduled tasks or who do not show up at all. 

Unexpected Charges

There are tech experts that are incredibly proficient and good at what they do. But when the bill arrives, it includes unexpected charges that were not in the initial quote. Aside from being highly unprofessional, such surprise invoices might also cause you to go over budget, which is certainly not good for your business.

Scope Creep

Sometimes also known as feature creep or requirement creep, scope creep is becoming more rampant in the IT industry. It is an extension or expansion of an IT task because the hired expert can’t resolve the issues immediately. Instead, the original problem branches out into several other issues, so the scope of the task keeps increasing. By the time everything is resolved, it will have taken up much more time and cost much more money than expected. 

Speaks in Very Technical Terms

Some IT professionals speak in very technical terms. This practice is a problem when talking to clients who are not tech-savvy. Perhaps they are so used to geek-speak that it has become part of their daily language, and they assume that everyone else understands what they are talking about, even when the client has no clue. 

Some IT guys intentionally speak in technical terms to show that they are the expert and know more than the client about technical matters. While this may be true, taking on a condescending tone will not help anyone. It is much better to hire an IT guy to educate the clients about the system instead of making them feel dumb.

Bad Customer Service

The IT industry is a service-intensive industry, so it can be perfectly natural to expect that you would get great, or at least decent, customer service from them. You are paying for the service, so you should not settle for anything less. At the first sign of bad customer service, many companies would not hesitate to fire the IT guy because so much time is wasted. 

Conclusion 

The best way to avoid hiring a bad IT guy would mean being more meticulous in your search. Don’t be afraid to be choosy when selecting from applicants. Read through their CVs very carefully and pick only those that seem reliable and professional. And always check references.

During the interviewing process, screen the applicants thoroughly by asking them the right questions. Based on their answers to these questions, you will be able to decide on whether they are the right person for the job or not. Considering hiring someone to manage your IT? Contact us today!

Network security’s importance continues to grow with the ever-evolving technology industry. Ensure your network is secure ahead-of-time instead of waiting until disaster strikes. Protecting the IT infrastructure within your business increases the reliability and safety of the business. Threats to your business can come in forms such as viruses/malware, phishing attacks, password attacks, or a denial-of-service (DoS) attack, and new attacks are being created regularly. All of these will cause more than just a headache for your IT department and could end up costing your business time and money.

Phishing is one of the most common threats hitting organizations. A phishing scam is when an email is sent in an attempt to get a response in order to gain information; such as a username and password. Phishing works because email, like physical mail, is built to assume that the sender is whom they claim to be.

Typically, the scammers will attempt to create a great amount of fear or panic in a potential victim by saying things such as “an attempt to login to your email was made from some [insert random city] click this link below to reset your password”. When someone reads that tag line from an email and sees legitimate looking aspects to the email, such as a Google logo displayed on it, they are more likely to believe it without even checking the website address.

Phishing is common because it is easy to create these fake emails and it has continued to grow in recent years. According to Webroot, a company that specializes in end-point protection, over 1.5 million new phishing sites are created each month. Since a clear majority of phishing attempts come through email, anyone with an email account is a potential target for these attacks. Just because you have not been targeted yet does not mean you never will.

• According to Cybersecurity Ventures, a world leading research group in the global cyber economy, Ransomware damages are now predicted to cost the world $11.5 billion in 2019, and $20 billion in 2021.

• According to Intel, 97% of people around the world are unable to identify a sophisticated phishing email.

• According to Cisco, 31% of people click the phishing links. Cisco saw that 17% of users enter their credentials into the phishing site as well.

Again, these attacks happen because they work. Phishing is effective because of how easy it is to send out massive amounts of emails. Sending large amounts of emails significantly increases the odds of someone clicking the link and entering their information.

Want to learn more about phishing? Give us a call at 260.482.2844 and make sure you keep an eye out for more information as this is just part 1 of our 2-part blog posts on phishing. Part 2 will go more in-depth over the specific types of attacks that people are using and what steps you should take to protect your business.

Thank you for reading!