IT Management Overview

Integrated Solutions

Frequently new clients come to us saying, "My computer doesn't work, I need it fixed!"

Our first question before beginning the work is always, "What do you need it to do?" Why? We have found that there are two ways of doing things when it comes to your business systems:

1. Implement a generic solution that meets the general 5-minute description of what you say you want; followed by a curt explanation of how you will need to make major changes to your processes to fit the system.
2. A careful analysis of what it is you are actually trying to do; followed by choosing and designing an integrated set of tools, which are built around your business processes.

Let us assume you are building a house; you know you need an entry-way to kick off the dirt from your shoes when coming in from the garage, and a kitchen to make your food. Yet, would you build the kitchen directly attached to the garage and the entry-way, behind the kitchen?

Of course not!

So why this example? It shows how whenever you place an important component into your business, you should carefully place it into your business to save yourself the pain of treading mud through your business to get to the rug and shoe rack. When we explain this to our clients, they are never surprised when we tell them the second option will help them work much more efficiently.

Our Services

How Does This Fit Into an IT Infrastructure?

While every business has different needs, we have found some common denominators in successful IT systems:

• Comprehensive Planning - Just like we discussed above, improper planning can lead to a configuration that does not conform to how your business operates.
• Meticulous Deployment - So, after we have carefully invested time designing the house mentioned above, we get the materials, and finally we grab a hammar and some nails, pound all the pieces together and call it good. This is a good way to guarantee an unsatisfactory result; at Ardent Flame, we always create a list of the items needing to be deployed and integrated and check them off as we deploy the IT infrastructure of your business.
• Information Organization - This item alone costs most small to medium-sized businesses thousands of dollars in lost time. How often do you find yourself unsure of exactly who is on your list of prospects? Do you have a way of printing out all of your active work projects with last activities and next steps in less than 5 minutes from sitting down in front of your computer? Having the ability to view all the information pertaining to your company and generate reports on the different aspects of your business at a moments notice saves you hours of time manually compiling the data, and provides you with an invaluable tool for managing your company.
• Information Centralization - Have you ever needed to know the schedule of another in your company while you are on the phone? Or perhaps you are picking up a project where someone left off to go on vacation, only to find that all the notes are on his laptop. The fact of the matter is, there is so much information, to properly collaborate within your company you need to enable the sharing of information without adding hours to your already busy team.
• Regular Maintenance - The world of technology is similar to the world of cars; if you never change your oil, check your brakes, or preform any other maintenance, your car will have problems. 100% Guaranteed. The IT world is no different, with both regular and qualified maintenance, your IT system will run more reliably, cost you less to operate, and you will avoid the many costly problems from neglecting appropriate care of the system.
• Automated Back-ups & Disaster Planning - What if an employee with administrator access accidentally installs a virus on your network that crashes all of your computers? Do you lose all your data? Or do you recover all your information from a back-up, and wipe and reinstall your computers to exactly the way they were before infection from a set disaster recovery plan? What if your office burns down? Do you have an offsite back-up of all the information that your client's trusted you with? These are only two of the many compelling reasons why you should have a regular back-up system and disaster recovery plan.

Apple's and Business

If we were paid a dollar every time we heard: "Apple computers are intuitive, and great fun to use... BUT, they can't be used for business" we could make almost anyone rich!

Contrary to common-belief, this is not true! Apple is built on the solid UNIX foundation, less susceptible to viruses, and inter-exist between different platforms with greater integration than even Windows.

Not only do Apple's systems tend to be more resiliant to problems posed by viruses and integration, they are much more intuitive to use. We have found that when a firm does a phased migration from Windows to Apple's OS X the biggest sigh of relief comes when the last Windows machine is replaced by an Apple.

With technologies like Leopard Server (and especially the forthcoming Snow Leopard Server), the iPhone, Parallels, Kerio, Daylite, Lightspeed, and many other powerful, easy-to-use solutions business is not only possible, but often more efficient on an Apple. We are not claiming that Apple is guaranteed to be right for your business, rather that it frequently is a good business decision.