Are you hiring for technology roles of the past?  Below are three roles that your business needs to evaluate and consider outsourcing based on today's technology landscape.  This is not an easy process, as there are PEOPLE in these roles that typically have reached the end of their careers or cannot obtain a similarly compensated role elsewhere.

If your business suffered a (successful) cyber attack today how would you respond?  There are no cyber police to call, nor is there a fire department to come put out the flames.  A disaster recovery plan is NOT the same as a cyber attack response plan.

The relationship between business and IT is more important than ever.  A healthy relationship generates increased profitability and productivity for both parties.  An unhealthy relationship delivers frustration, missed opportunities, and a lack of trust.

Workstation recovery is the most overlooked part of recovery planning.  Recovering all your servers and data without workstations is not useful.  This becomes critical as office locations and workstations increase.  Reinstalling the operating system and applications for 10 workstations can be brute forced, the same cannot be said for 100.  The uncomfortable stares of employees waiting to get their workstations back up and running is an event you want to avoid.

If you run a business and think RPO means run pass option, your business backup strategy is in trouble.  An area of focus we highlighted last week was recovery planning.  There are two key concepts in recovery planning.  These concepts link directly to the success of your business surviving a ransomware event.

The surge in ransomware and cyber attacks is not stopping anytime soon.  We have all seen the statistics, but when it is your business the math becomes real.  We receive calls on a monthly basis from a business owner that is asking for help recovering from an attack.

Technology alignment is critical for a growing business, especially as a business scales up.  A car that is out of alignment behaves the same as a business.  At slow speeds (low growth) the lack of alignment is not noticeable, but once you get on the highway hold on or the car will be drifting across the highway headed for a crash!

A business that is out of alignment crosses the lanes of lower productivity, less security, and less profit.

A funny thing happens when some people have success.  They quit innovating and get comfortable with the status quo.  This same phenomenon happens to businesses all the time especially when it comes to technology.  This leads to reduced productivity and profits which no business wants.

There is great corporate migration to Nashville right now. Companies are moving out of the high tax and regulation states like CA and NY and bringing lots of jobs with them.! This is great for the local economy, but will accelerate the need for (local) businesses to shift to outsourcing their IT to a partner.

How do you know when it is time to change IT providers? Do you wait until some unforeseen disaster? Until you find out all their best techs have left? Until your competitors are moving past you due to higher levels of tech enabled productivity?

Changing IT providers is right up there with finding a new accounting or legal group to work with.