Research from Microsoft Ireland has shown that two thirds of small businesses in Ireland do not have IT support, giving rise to the phenomenon dubbed the ‘accidental IT manager’.
The accidental IT manager is the person, usually a senior male member of the organisation, who takes on the IT issues due to some technical knowledge, or in many cases, more enthusiasm than expertise.
A third of these accidental IT managers will spend more than 150 hours a year, or 6.5 working days dealing with IT issues, and not always successfully as more than half (56%) staff reported being frustrated by accidental IT managers.
In almost three quarters (74%) of small businesses, the senior IT decision maker role is fulfilled by a member of senior management. Where there is no formal IT support, employees most commonly seek external help from IT professionals (76%), or rely on internal skills, with more than half (55%) saying that they take the lead themselves, with 53% reporting that another technologically minded staff member does so. These users also resort to measures such as seeking help from friends (54%) and searching the Internet for possible solutions (48%).
In these organisations lacking IT support, a third say that they spend three or more hours per week on IT issues. A further quarter are spending between 1 and 2 hours per week on IT issues. This equates to 25% who are spending between around 52 and 104 hours on IT issues per year.
This is all despite the fact that three-quarters of those in such organisations admit that IT plays critical role in their organisation’s success.
"The accidental it manager is a thankless task," said Martin Cullen, director, Small and Medium Sized and Partner Business, Microsoft Ireland. "There is a big difference between helping out on small IT issues, versus having to manage an IT infrastructure which they are not equipped for. Time spent firefighting means loss of productivity, by not being able to get on with what they do best, innovating and growing their business instead of wasting valuable time on checking updates, licences and other non-productive IT issues. Cloud Services which are updated and supported automatically by Microsoft such as Office 365, CRM Online and Lync take the worry out of investing in and maintaining a costly IT Infrastructure, and enables the focus to be placed on competing and growing their business. Microsoft Cloud Services also level the playing pitch for SMEs giving them enterprise class tools to compete with the bigger competitors, which Accidental IT Managers could undermine."
Cloud computing is offered as a means of escaping the accidental IT manager and providing competiveness for smaller businesses, according to Microsoft. The survey reports that more than half (51%) of small Irish businesses use at least one cloud service, with email or document exchange the most used cloud based service.
More than a third (36%) of such businesses are likely to shift more of their IT spending to cloud solutions in the next year, though concerns remain. The top three issues in organisation’s decision to use cloud solutions were data security (90%) work continuity in case of disasters (88%) and user-friendliness (88%).
Among those already using cloud solutions, the vast majority agree that cloud computing is going to become more important for the success of organisations like theirs (83%, compared to 49% among non-cloud users). And, a similar proportion agree that cloud computing is crucial to any small organisation with an ambition to grow (72%, compared to 44% of non-cloud users).
"Our most important resource is time," said Paul Switzer, finance and ICT manager, KARE. "We always want to be better at helping our service users. Every extra minute spent due to old technology, and every added cost, takes valuable time away from our staff who are passionate and believe strongly that their time and resources are best spent in the communities they serve with the people who need them most. By adopting easy to use Cloud technology, accessing the information and data our staff need is much easier. We are now able to work and share critical information we need, anywhere and anytime we need it."
Cloud users, according to the findings, are also more likely than others to see the value of remote working. Half of those using cloud computing say that it will be important for their organisation to offer employees remote or mobile working capabilities in the future (52%, compared to 36% among non-users).
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