Businesses of this size usually have very unique challenges.

IT is usually handled by the most technical person on the team. This person usually has multiple roles of both IT in addition to one or two other responsibilities.

Services that are critical at this stage

• Education
  • Many times at this stage people feel like they are on an island and the success or failure of their business rides on their shoulders. Having continued education can strengthen their knowledge base and help them be confident in the decisions they are making.
• Support
  • Having a team behind you during critical moments can mean the difference between success or failure. Having a bucket of hours to use in any way that you wish can bolster you own ability to take care of problems as they arise or be proactive in ways you could not do before.
  • Examples on how people use their bucket of hours. 
    • Project planning and coordination
    • Extra hands for big deployments
    • System Monitoring
    • Emergency response
    • Big system changes
    • Evaluations
• Real time online chat location
  • Collaborate with full time IT professionals as well as others in your same position in real time through online chat.
• Annual free event for dual role IT people
  • Gather together and discuss trends in the industry as well as issues affecting small business.
  • Great for CEO/CFO/HR people who do IT as a secondary role

Company grows to over 50 people. Roles are more defined and there is a need for a full/part time IT person or Managed Service Provider (MSP).

Many companies will choose to bring on a full/part time IT person to handle a lot of the break/fix problems that arise. This person is usually a beginner in the field and could really use mentoring and skills training. 

Services usually offered during this stage

• Monthly training for your Full time/Part time IT person

  • Weekly gathering together as a group to learn from each other. Here is an example of what that schedule might look like.

    • Hour 1: Leadership/Power Skills Training
    • Hour 2: Case Studies (We had this major thing happen and this is how we fixed it)
    • Hour 3: Site Analysis (This is our site and this is how we do things)
    • Hour 4: Technical skills training (Server, Networking, Storage, Software, coding, etc)

• Free chat channel with other IT people in the program
• Bucket of support hours to use every year
• 30% discount on Paid Technical Support after bucket is depleted

When a company reaches more than 250 employees that is when the IT person usually turns into an IT team with specialties and responsibilities.

Systems become more decentralized with multiple offices. Geographic decisions are considered and have a big impact on what technology is being used.

Redundancies of systems and applications become a priority and cloud applications are more prevalent

24 hour support is required

Services usually offered during this stage

• Weekly On-site Training - Training is brought on-site when 4 or more IT people are from a single company.
  Benefits:
  • On-site Trainings are more tailored to the company's specific needs.
  • Less cost/loss of wages when training can be done during a lunch hour without the need to travel.
  • Participants can speak openly about issues without concern for security or privacy.
    Team building happens more casually.