Are you sure about that?
After over 20 years of supporting small businesses, we’ve heard many people say this, right up until their “break-and-fix IT” goes sideways.
Before something breaks that can’t be fixed, take a minute to learn about our approach to Toronto IT support for small business and non profit teams.
You might discover the real solution you’ve been needing all along.
A staff member left three months ago. Is their access to your email and files completely revoked? Or are you pretty sure it is? Or do you not really know?
Before that, another staff member (your “tech person” actually) walked away with 3 of your laptops. And they might still control your domain. What now?
Your new employee started four days ago. They still don’t have a computer, and are just using email on their phone for now. Forever? How do you remove that?
It turned into a giant mess. Endless SharePoint folders and Teams, and channels. Time-eating, soul-sucking chaos.
No one really knows how or where files are stored now. Do they search the shared drive? Which one? Do they just ask someone, because it’s a mess?
The network is fine right? Except the server keeps crashing. Oh, and the AutoCad files take 30 minutes to render. And the VoIP calls are brutal. And the WiFi is spotty. And…
Support fixes what’s broken.
Management prevents the breaking.
Those are not the same service.
And most small businesses are paying for the first one while desperately needing the second.
IT support without standards is tolerable when you first start out, painful as you begin to grow, and flat out high risk and unsustainable over time.
The earlier you put in the right controls, the less costly the setup is. A project to properly setup a team of 3 is much less costly than if you wait until there are 10 staff and devices to bring up to standard.
Now that you know that “break-and-fix” IT support is messy, risky and unsustainable, you can make a better choice.
Learn how we work together as your fully managed IT support partners.
a very high level of security
every step of the way
You don’t have bad luck with tech stuff. You’re just missing out on all the benefits of standardized IT systems.
When your IT environment has documented standards for how devices are set up, how access is granted and revoked, how files are organized and protected, how new people are onboarded and departing people are offboarded, these problems stop happening. Not most of them. Essentially all of them.
And here’s what else changes: your business gets easier to run and easier to grow.
Hire your 20th employee with the same ease as your 5th. Open a second location without IT chaos. Pass a client security screening. Sleep without wondering whether that person who left in February still has access to your server.
That’s what IT management delivers.
Break and fix IT support charges by the hour after something has already failed, and managed IT support charges a fixed monthly fee to stop the failure happening. The practical difference is the incentive.
A break and fix provider earns more when your systems break. A managed provider earns the same whether your systems break or not, so the work goes into standards, patching, backups and security controls that keep things running.
Break and fix also means nobody owns your environment between visits, which is how undocumented systems and orphaned accounts and security gaps build up.
Managed IT support usually includes device and identity management, help desk access for every staff member, security monitoring, patching, backup, and a documented onboarding and offboarding process. In Ontario it also has to account for PIPEDA obligations around personal information, and for PHIPA if the business handles health information.
The part most small businesses miss is the documentation: standard build documents, an approved apps list, and a record of who has access to what.
That documentation is what a vendor security questionnaire or an insurer asks to see.
No. We work with clients on a fully managed basis only.
If you need one specific thing done and no ongoing relationship, we are not a good fit.
Yes, and it is a normal starting point. Some clients keep an internal person for day to day requests and bring us in for the security, Microsoft 365 and compliance layer. Others move everything across. We look at what your current setup covers, tell you what is missing, and put a plan in front of you before anything changes.
Not at all. Team size changes what you pay. It does not change what you need.
For example, a five person law firm holds client data that is just as valuable as a fifty person firm’s.
Information security screening questionnaires an enterprise client would send do not have a small business version. Standards are standards.
Our five person clients run the same security controls as our fifty person clients, because the attacks do not scale down.
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