Technology specified around the business, not sold to it
Business technology for engineering and manufacturing SMEs — managed IT, Microsoft 365, cyber security, backup and connectivity. We work out what the business actually needs; the specialist delivery is provided through a trusted technology partner.
Most SMEs do not need more technology
They need what they already depend on to be secure, reliable and properly managed. That decision usually gets made by whoever shouts loudest, or whoever is selling.
What we can help with
- Managed IT
- Day-to-day support and helpdesk, remote support, IT consultancy, IT strategy and digital transformation.
- Microsoft and cloud
- Microsoft 365, Teams and SharePoint, cloud migration, cloud infrastructure and Microsoft Azure.
- Cyber security
- Endpoint protection, email security, multi-factor authentication, security monitoring, and support preparing for Cyber Essentials.
- Backup and continuity
- Backup and disaster recovery, business continuity planning, and data recovery.
- Network and infrastructure
- Network design and installation, business Wi-Fi, connectivity, firewalls, servers, and network monitoring.
- Communications
- VoIP telephone systems and unified communications.
- Hardware and software
- Procurement, laptop and desktop deployment, device management and software licensing.
- Proactive management
- Remote monitoring and management, patch management, IT asset management, and user onboarding and offboarding.
A good scope usually removes more than it adds.
Understand, recommend, implement, support
Understand the requirement
What the business does, where it actually loses time, and what the technology is being asked to carry.
Recommend what is needed
What to fix, what to leave, and what to stop paying for.
Implement
Delivered through our technology partner, with us coordinating the scope and the parts of the change that are operational rather than technical.
Support
Ongoing management, so the arrangement does not depend on whoever set it up still being available.
Specialist technology services are delivered through a trusted technology partner, with AliKat Advisory helping to scope and coordinate the requirement where appropriate.
Most technology problems are operational problems first
These are the sentences that usually start the conversation.
- “Microsoft 365 was set up by whoever was available, and nobody has looked at it since.”
- “Files live in three places and nobody is certain which copy is current.”
- “There is a backup, and nobody has ever tested restoring from it.”
- “The people who left last year may still have accounts.”
- “Four suppliers, and each one says the problem belongs to another.”
Each has a technical fix, and each is really a question about ownership, process and who is accountable — which is the work we already do on the operations side. Fractional operations
Straight answers
For a straightforward support requirement, often not — and we will say so rather than invent a reason to be there. Where it earns its place is when the technology question is tangled up with how the business runs.
Often it is, and often the answer is to keep them — an incumbent who knows your systems is worth a great deal. What is usually missing is somebody on your side of the table asking whether what you pay for matches what the business needs. That is a different question from whether the supplier is any good.
Tell us what is not working.
A description of what keeps going wrong is enough to start — the systems, the suppliers and the bills can come later. We will tell you what we think the requirement actually is.