Top 4 IT Frustrations of SMB Leaders

Small business owners and executive directors often cringe at the thought of IT. Their organizations are so dependent on software systems that an outage can bring operations to a halt. Because they lack the scale of larger firms and don’t have someone dedicated to IT, they choose solutions that lack the predictability, visibility and focus their larger competitors enjoy.

1. The “Break-Fix” Whiplash (Unpredictable Costs)

One attractive choice for small businesses is the break-fix or pay-as-you-go model. The vendor doesn’t provide service until they are called. In this scenario, there is no planning for hardware replacements and no proactive maintenance. Small businesses enjoy long periods of minimal IT expense followed by a critical failure. Because they need to scramble to repair problems, they may end up paying higher rates for service and suffering through downtime as they wait for parts to arrive. An unplanned server replacement is a severe budget hit for a small firm, especially this year with AI-driven inflation for storage and memory.

2. Outgrowing “The Tech Guy” or a Disorganized Vendor

I spoke with someone this year who told me his friend supports his company as his side hustle. This is a common theme in small business where the owners like a person and will hang on to them even though they now have 20 or 30 employees and have outgrown what their friend can provide. There are so many problems with this approach, and yet owners continue with these arrangements long after they have realized their friend no longer meets their needs.

A small one or two-person firm lacks:

• The variety of experience and specialization of larger firms.
• Partner relationships to offer product purchases and support.
• Maintenance procedures to keep systems operating securely and effectively.
• Management tools for monitoring, ticketing, vulnerability assessment…
• Knowledge of security trends and tools.
• Planning is lacking or simply doesn’t exist.

This is the most dangerous period in a company’s growth in my experience. They have too much data to recreate by hand, but they are not monitoring backups, patching, and vulnerabilities. We often see companies who think they have a backup, but it has been failing for months. Failed software patches are almost universal in this scenario and this allows cybersecurity vulnerabilities to remain open indefinitely.

3. The “Am I Safe?” Anxiety (Cybersecurity Blind Spots)

Small business leaders hear constantly about ransomware and data breaches, but they really don’t understand what tools they have or which ones they need. Most resort to hiding in the hope that an attack won’t happen to them, but there is an underlying anxiety that they are vulnerable. Usually, they are not wrong.

A larger vendor has experience with a wide array of cybersecurity tools and is familiar with applicable regulatory compliance frameworks for various businesses including HIPAA, PCI, CMMC and more. This experience allows MTSi to customize a cybersecurity posture that fits each firm’s requirements and budget. The most comforting thing is a vendor who can describe cyber products in simple terms and identify the risks they protect against.

There are some advantages to being a small business! Most of the licensing for these products is charged on a per seat basis, so the cost for small businesses is minimal compared to what larger firms spend.

4. Software Fragmenting & “Feature Waste”

Small business owners look at their credit card statements and realize they are paying for Microsoft 365, multiple industry-specific tools, and a host of other software that solved some specific problem that they can’t quite remember. The subscriptions continue month after month whether the features are being used or not. Unfortunately, in many firms, employees don’t know where to store files or how to share them with each other and no one knows how to use all the programs they have access to.

What is lacking is a plan for how systems and collaboration tools are used. A more insidious problem is that users often have rights to file shares that they should not. Eventually they discover this and start looking at data that can create security, privacy, and compliance concerns.

The solution

Small business leaders do not want to manage technology—they want to run their business. Their ultimate frustration is that IT takes up too much space in their brain. They need an outsourced partner who acts less like an on-call mechanic and more like a strategic advisor. The right partner handles maintenance to keep the environment operating effectively and plans upgrades to get the most out of the IT investment. With the right advice and stewardship, IT can become an asset to small businesses instead of a constant source of frustration.

If these frustrations sound familiar, reach out to our sales team and move up to managed services with MTSi.