Title: Are You Ready For An It Service? Word Count: 660 Summary: Many ecommerce business struggle with the decision of hiring an IT service. The cost is often prohibitive, but there does come a time when office personnel can be put to better use. In many cases, non-professionals waste so much time trying to manage IT systems and projects that it would be cheaper to pay an IT service to manage the sytem. Many ecommerce businesses flounder for months before they even realize what an IT service can offer them. In most cases, it is a wast... Keywords: work at home, IT, service Article Body: Many ecommerce business struggle with the decision of hiring an IT service. The cost is often prohibitive, but there does come a time when office personnel can be put to better use. In many cases, non-professionals waste so much time trying to manage IT systems and projects that it would be cheaper to pay an IT service to manage the sytem. Many ecommerce businesses flounder for months before they even realize what an IT service can offer them. In most cases, it is a waste of time for business owners to waste their time learning to do what an IT professional can do for them. Many people are confused when they consider whether to upgrade from DSL or not. They do not understand how to combine phone, IM, PCs, into a communication network that services the office, sales, e-platforms, and even their selling venues. Connection and Communication There are several factors to consider when examining you system and the possibility of replacing it. For many businesses, the biggest factor is reliability and cost. If reliability is critical to the applications then hire an IT service. Especially, if you are so far behind the times that you still believe your DSL connection is the best on the market. Many businesses can increase their power by converting to a T1 connection. . DSL is a quick and cost effective method of acquiring high speed bandwidth however it is not intended to support commercial applications or large numbers of users. T1 connections are specially created to manage these systems. Most business owners do not realize how much of their communication is lost in cyberspace because they have a hodgepodge of connections through PCs, webhosts, modems, and routers. In fact, one company recently hired an IT company who placed everything on a single server, from telephone to ecommerce sites. This improved their performance ten fold. Reliability becomes critical when customers or employees depend on the connection for immediate responses. If customers use the connection to access the databases (like with a shopping cart), or the internet then reliability is critical. Millions of dollars in sales are lost because customers received a 404, or 403 message, and clicked out instead of refreshing the page. A critical connection is a lifeline, without which the business will be negatively impacted. Many businesses cannot afford a T1 which can be 20 times more expensive than DSL connection. The problem with DSL is that it is oversubscribed. There is a finite amount of bandwidth available and speed drops when customers in the neighborhood use their service. This means that computer connections will time out. Ecommerce I currently have a friend who has spent the last three weeks trying to solve an affiliate management tool in his shopping cart. He is sweating, worried that his affiliates will catch the problem and drop him. For three weeks he has risked loosing his hard-earned affiliates. All because he doesn’t have a trusted IT service. A freelancer could have solved the problem for $250 - $1000. A small price when you calculate how long it will take this business owner to find more affiliates who are savvy enough to increase his hits and sales. Every hour of the day should be balanced. Will the business owner make more money wasting their time learning how to fix a PHP problem in the database, or out selling? If the answer is ‘selling’ then, even if hiring an IT person will cause a financial burden in the ‘short run.’ They should hire the person and focus on ‘running their business.’ Conclusion It is all about balance and money. How much money can the business owner make in the time it takes them to solve an IT problem? And, how much down time can they afford? The IT professional can solve a problem in 2 hours. At $250 an hour, this may seem too expensive. But, the business owner will take 30, 50, or 100 hours to solve the same problem – How much does that cost the business.