Small businesses wishing to remain competitive cannot afford to be complacent about technology support. Linking Service Level Agreements (SLAs) to IT support is becoming vital. SLAs are not beyond the reach of small, medium and micro enterprises and can be tailored to meet business requirements and budgets.
Small businesses rely on IT systems for communication, transacting and even service delivery. Network failure or losing access to email can be debilitating, signalling loss of sales and drop in service capability.
With small business owners being more tech savvy and hands-on in terms of implementing IT systems and solutions, many try to do it all with less than satisfactory results. The reality is that it takes technology management expertise and ongoing vigilance to ensure a stable, reliable technology environment and IT support SLAs assist to mitigate risk. Clearly understanding how to build support around critical applications and systems can deliver SLAs that are effective and affordable.
Designing an effective SLA for SMEs
The key objective in designing an effective IT support SLA is to build a support structure around business critical applications and systems that drive core business processes and operations.
Firstly, assess the IT systems and solutions in place, identify critical applications and systems, determine risk to the business and shore up obvious weaknesses.
This phase lays the foundation for ongoing support and requires close collaboration between the business and the outsourced service provider. Typical issues addressed in this phase may include ensuring there is no single point of failure, that backups are in place and running properly, resilience is built into IT systems to cope with potential failure, and that a Disaster Recovery (DR) plan is in place.
The next step is to define how critical systems will be supported. Particular focus should be given to system health checks, which encompass regular assessments of network, server and application performance. This facilitates proactive preventative maintenance, providing early warning of any irregularities or potential failure.
Making all the difference is ensuring the outsource service provider selected has the right skills and experience to support the business. Questions to ask include: does the service provider have a good track record, do they have experience supporting SMMEs, do its technicians have the necessary formal training, and does it have an established service management capability?
**Dawie Bloomberg is managing director of Green Apple IT.
