Transcript

My name is Ryan Williams.  I’m a partner and vice president at Nexxtep Technology Services based in Valdosta, Georgia.  We are a technology outsourcing firm/technology consulting firm that helps businesses delivery bottom line results through reducing risk, increasing profitability, and reducing expenses within the organization.

A common misconception that business owners and managers have about technology people is that their technology skill and their certifications are the most important attribute that they have.  In reality, I would say, based on my 15 years of experience, that the most important attribute that a technology person can have is thoroughness.  

In the IT world, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of check boxes and settings that have to be all set up correctly for the IT environment to function properly and if any one of those technology – if any one of those check boxes or settings are missed or set up improperly then the technology infrastructure will not be there when the business needs it most.  

In my view, it is much more important for a technology, or for a business to evaluate a technology vendor’s processes than it is to evaluate their certifications.  If I was evaluating their technology purser and technology company I would be quizzing them and looking for proof that they have the systems and processes behind the scenes to deliver on the promises that they have given versus the technical skills and showing me pieces of paper that show certifications.  Certifications are not worth as much if the person who has those certifications can’t deliver on the promises that they’ve made.  

A good example of thoroughness when it comes to technology that I often use as an example is that of setting up a back-up system; it’s something that most organizations, most business owners are familiar with.  A back-up system can be functioning properly, you can have successful back-ups every single day, but if the back-up system was set up to back-up the C: drive and all your data is on the D: drive of the server then that back-up system’s not doing you much good.  That’s an example of where thoroughness comes into play.  If the systems and processes are setup that there are checks and double-checks when the system – when the back-up system is set up, then you have people checking behind people to make sure that the back-ups are set up properly and that the back-up systems are in fact backing up the information that the business owner deems necessary.  

So, Nexxtep has developed a proprietary evaluation and best practices tool, our checklist that evaluates about 200 items of an organization.  Everything from their business processes to their accounting practices, to the IT infrastructure and the IT environment back-up systems.  It covers, basically every area and then some that most organization owners, business owners would not think to even ask, and this ensures that we are able to deliver and cover all the bases; cross all the T’s and dot all the I’s, as they say. 

So, if a business is interested in seeing that practice, that evaluation tool in practice and seeing us deliver that evaluation method, they can contact us either via our website at www.ncare.com, or they can call us at (229) 671-1513.