Small Business IT Consulting

Small Business IT Consulting

Small businesses with less than 100 network users have traditionally been under-served by IT Consulting / IT Outsourcing / IT Support / Microsoft Support firms. Many small companies allow themselves to become overly dependent on individual freelance consultants or 1-2 person consulting organizations who lack the bandwidth or comprehensive skill sets to respond promptly or effectively to technical emergencies. Other small businesses turn to mass-market service providers staffed with technicians trained to offer by-the-numbers solutions to common problems but who lack the experience and versatility to deal with the diversity of environments and absence of standardization typical of small business information networks. In both cases, when tough problems crop up, technical support fees skyrocket while worker productivity plummets, and all the risk is still on the business owner. By outsourcing to Network Essentials shift the risk so the business owner can focus on their business and allow Network Essentials to maintain IT Service delivery.  The risk shifts to Network Essentials so our team is trained to always do "root-cause analysis, not just applying band-aids.

Since 2002, Network Essentials has specialized in providing enterprise-class network support to customers with small-company IT budgets. Network Essentials has developed a flat-fee support delivery system that includes a tightly controlled, low-overhead office infrastructure based in Charlotte, NC.  For our clients outside of Charlotte remote support our IT Consultants manage requests remotely with our state-of-the-art remote management system and onsite support is provided by W-2 employees. Virtual offices in our small market locations control our costs and allow access to sophisticated remote troubleshooting technology, a large pool of engineers with professional industry certifications from the major technology vendors and security organizations, a Help Desk service model that maximizes responsiveness and ensures follow-through, a team of on-line support professionals, on-site service availability and a company culture focused on solving technical problems in the shortest time to clients. All this has helped make Network Essentials one of the best independent network support firms in the Southeastern region.

Network Essentials enables you to maximize the business value of your information system and minimize support costs. Network Essentials recognizes that network security, dependability, and efficiency are just as important to small businesses as to large enterprises but that small organizations don't have the economy of scale to invest heavily in computer technology, large in-house support staffs, or super-sized IT outsourcing contracts. Network Essentials fundamental value proposition is that no IT consulting firm can match Network Essentials ability to deliver the network support services your business needs when you need them at prices you can afford.

Network Essentials offers a variety of options for providing small businesses with cost-effective computer services:

• Network troubleshooting
• IT Consulting
• Microsoft Support
• IT Outsourcing
• Hosting / Cloud Computing
• IT management
• Help Desk
• Server Management
• Desktop Management
• Network Auditing / Network Documentation
• Network Security Assessments
• Firewall Installation
• Network Security
• VDI or Virtual Desktop Infrastructure
• Disaster Recovery / Business Continuity Solutions
• VoIP or Voice over IP Phone systems
• PBX or Phone Systems
• Temporary Staff Augmentation
• Office Relocation
• CIO Service
• Remote Monitoring
• Email Security Solutions
• SharePoint Design
• Business Intelligency (BI) / Business Reporting

• Security Vulnerability Scanning and (PEN) Penetration Testing

Why Network Essentials Makes Sense for Small Businesses

Network Essentials staff size, breadth and depth of technical expertise, and familiarity with enterprise IT support allow small businesses to avoid the pitfalls associated with excessive reliance on smaller service organizations, independent freelance consultants, or mass-market computer support firms.

Working with Network Essentials allows your small business to:

Avoid Dependence on Individual Freelance Consultants. For IT support, small businesses often rely excessively on freelance consultants. Although freelance consultants carry less overhead than full-service support organizations and can afford to charge nominally smaller fees, they are often stretched too thin to respond quickly to urgent situations. If an independent consultant is busy with another client, sick, on vacation, or in training, the lack of backup may force your business to wait for help during an emergency. As your small business grows, network downtime or problems with critical applications become more costly. The money you thought you were saving on a freelancer can be eaten up quickly by lost productivity. In addition, when freelance consultants encounter unfamiliar problems, their lack of a large engineering team to fall back on for advice forces them to learn on the job while you end up footing the bill for their ongoing education.

Have Access to Expertise in Complex IT Solutions. Many small service organizations or freelance consultants who cater to small businesses may excel at providing a limited set of solutions but lack the experience and depth to deal cost-effectively with complex IT infrastructures with multiple platforms and technology vendors. Network Essentials experience with global companies can be valuable to your small business because enterprise environments are inherently complex, integration issues require in-depth knowledge in many technical areas, and achieving a high level of stability, reliability, and security requires enterprise-proven best practices.

Build a Solid Foundation for Seamless Growth. Small businesses often start with an IT system implemented on a shoestring budget. Lacking a proper foundation, an accumulation of band-aid fixes often gets piled on top of a weak foundation. As a business grows, stability and scalability issues can hinder the success of the organization. Such environments need proper assessment, intelligent strategic planning, and broad-based expertise to upgrade cost-effectively to an IT infrastructure that will provide the solid basis to meet critical business needs and facilitate future growth.

Have the Freedom to Change Your IT Support Provider. Busy freelance consultants are often inclined or forced to skimp on service documentation, making it difficult for clients to transfer IT support to a new service provider or to take over support responsibilities internally. Network Essentials comprehensive service documentation and commitment to knowledge transfer makes it easier for clients to move support to a different internal resource or to a new IT service firm. For application or data center hosting, Network Essentials approach stands out from conventional hosting models by having the client retain ownership of software licenses. This makes it dramatically faster and easier for customers to change hosting services or to manage applications in their own data centers.

Special Benefits of Working with Network Essentials

As a Microsoft Silver Certified Partner and a Microsoft Small Business Specialist, Network Essentials is an acknowledged expert at the fundamental system software and office productivity applications used by most small and medium-size companies. As our consultants have most major certifications so we are not locked into only one solution. Network Essentials also offers expertise for an increasingly complex array of network technologies including Fortinet, Sonicwall, Juniper, Checkpoint, Palo Alto and Cisco firewalls, HP Procurve, Dell and Cisco switches, Juniper and Cisco routers, Trixbox and Avaya VoIP options, and Fortinet, Sonicwall, Ruckus Wireless, Proxim and Cisco wireless access points. Furthermore, Network Essentials certified security experts and security professionals offer a company-wide view of network security.

Value Flat-fee Pricing. Network Essentials monthly maintenance and project work all revolve around flat-fee pricing. Our agreements have a 30 day "Out" clause for any reason without the long term contracts that are expensive or difficult to terminate early.

Full Documentation of IT Services. Network Essentials has developed a comprehensive service reporting system that records and formats detailed documentation for all delivered services. Unlike some independent consultants or local service firms who provide scant documentation or details of services done, if any, every service provided by Network Essentials is extensively and usefully documented. The practice of detailing and archiving service activity results in more effective service and eliminates a variety of common problems such as when a support customer is virtually held hostage to a consultant who refuses to release vital service information such as DNS control or domain naming rights.

Network Essentials IT Outsourcing and Network Monitoring Packages also feature network assessment, security audits, Help Desk Call Center support, and the establishment of safe remote connections between your network and Network Essentials support experts. For additional information about Network Essentials network support outsourcing, see Network Essentials IT Support Outsourcing and Network Monitoring.

Contact Network Essentials for Help with Your Small Business Network