1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,320 So today on our Tech for Business podcast, Alex, our Assistant Director of Services is 2 00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:12,880 joining us to discuss questions IT admins should ask their business leaders. 3 00:00:12,880 --> 00:00:17,640 So Alex, just to start us off, why are we even having this conversation? 4 00:00:17,640 --> 00:00:24,480 I mean, why are IT admins in the room with their president, their CEOs, their C levels? 5 00:00:24,480 --> 00:00:29,840 It's a great question and it's one that probably doesn't get thought of a lot. 6 00:00:29,840 --> 00:00:31,400 Why would we need to be there? 7 00:00:31,400 --> 00:00:38,360 You know, you're not up high on the food chain or anything like that, but so much runs through 8 00:00:38,360 --> 00:00:45,800 technology and leverages us that a simple change or policy or procedural change directly 9 00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:47,280 impacts us. 10 00:00:47,280 --> 00:00:52,440 And being in that room helps us be able to advocate and know what's coming and be prepared 11 00:00:52,440 --> 00:00:55,160 for what to look for. 12 00:00:55,160 --> 00:00:56,160 Definitely. 13 00:00:56,160 --> 00:00:57,160 Definitely. 14 00:00:57,160 --> 00:01:00,880 I kind of think, you know, your team is a little bit boots on the ground. 15 00:01:00,880 --> 00:01:04,720 You got to keep connection with that frontline people. 16 00:01:04,720 --> 00:01:10,600 So I do have five questions I've brought today that, you know, I think IT admins should be 17 00:01:10,600 --> 00:01:14,840 asking and I'm curious as to what you think. 18 00:01:14,840 --> 00:01:16,800 And you know, if you would add or change anything. 19 00:01:16,800 --> 00:01:20,280 So the first thing is sort of long term planning. 20 00:01:20,280 --> 00:01:26,480 So looking six months ahead, a year ahead, where do you foresee us going? 21 00:01:26,480 --> 00:01:33,520 And why is this long term planning question important for IT members to be a part of? 22 00:01:33,520 --> 00:01:34,720 Yeah. 23 00:01:34,720 --> 00:01:42,360 So it's a great question for the fact of, you know, going to touch a little bit on budget. 24 00:01:42,360 --> 00:01:46,240 I imagine that'll probably be one of your questions you'll ask going forward, but it 25 00:01:46,240 --> 00:01:51,160 really comes into long term planning, let's us know what infrastructure we need six months 26 00:01:51,160 --> 00:01:56,360 from now to accommodate the goals of the company and the objectives that we have to a year 27 00:01:56,360 --> 00:01:57,360 from now. 28 00:01:57,360 --> 00:02:01,400 Are we starting to position ourselves into maybe the cloud? 29 00:02:01,400 --> 00:02:03,320 Do we want to go cloud orientated? 30 00:02:03,320 --> 00:02:06,640 Well that takes some infrastructure out of our scope. 31 00:02:06,640 --> 00:02:08,520 So maybe we don't put our budget there. 32 00:02:08,520 --> 00:02:11,760 We don't forecast planning there for that. 33 00:02:11,760 --> 00:02:17,760 Being part of that long term planning three, six years out is so important because it dictates 34 00:02:17,760 --> 00:02:22,840 how we're going to structure everything on the back end and being involved in going, 35 00:02:22,840 --> 00:02:24,720 hey, that's a great idea. 36 00:02:24,720 --> 00:02:29,600 Do you know it's going to take these four components to make that happen? 37 00:02:29,600 --> 00:02:36,560 What might look good on paper and be sold from a software developer or a company doesn't 38 00:02:36,560 --> 00:02:41,280 mean that it's not it's turn turn a knob, click a button and it goes live. 39 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:45,920 There's a lot of stuff behind the scenes that we'll have to get prior provision because 40 00:02:45,920 --> 00:02:50,680 let's be honest now we're moving more and more to technology, the leveraging the internet 41 00:02:50,680 --> 00:02:56,120 and pushing the computers further and further in the technology that we have, which then 42 00:02:56,120 --> 00:02:57,360 directly impacts us. 43 00:02:57,360 --> 00:03:01,800 It may help accounting and why do we need to be involved if it helps accounting? 44 00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:08,480 I totally understand, but I can guarantee at some capacity it's going to involve us. 45 00:03:08,480 --> 00:03:14,200 And just being involved in those conversations just sets everybody up for success. 46 00:03:14,200 --> 00:03:15,200 That's great. 47 00:03:15,200 --> 00:03:18,400 I love saying that communication setting people up for success. 48 00:03:18,400 --> 00:03:19,400 That's so important. 49 00:03:19,400 --> 00:03:23,120 And you did guess my next question, which is budget. 50 00:03:23,120 --> 00:03:26,360 Along with that long term planning, what is the budget available? 51 00:03:26,360 --> 00:03:29,080 How do you want me to prioritize the budget? 52 00:03:29,080 --> 00:03:34,920 And I'm curious as to you kind of explained it a little bit, but why are IT admins involved 53 00:03:34,920 --> 00:03:36,640 in accounting, in budget? 54 00:03:36,640 --> 00:03:39,240 Why are you in that conversation? 55 00:03:39,240 --> 00:03:43,400 I mean, there's a lot of aspects of the budget that impact us. 56 00:03:43,400 --> 00:03:45,600 Personnel, our day-to-day costs. 57 00:03:45,600 --> 00:03:49,720 It sounds silly, but keeping the printers running, toner, stuff like that. 58 00:03:49,720 --> 00:03:55,640 Things that you just don't think about is budgetary items that people just take for granted. 59 00:03:55,640 --> 00:04:00,280 Our staff, future projects, that involves budgetary things. 60 00:04:00,280 --> 00:04:04,920 If we're going to the cloud, we might not need server infrastructure, which is amazing. 61 00:04:04,920 --> 00:04:06,640 That's one net cost. 62 00:04:06,640 --> 00:04:09,440 When you go to the cloud, it's a monthly cost, most likely. 63 00:04:09,440 --> 00:04:15,360 So you're trading a big upfront cost where you finance out for five years to a recurring 64 00:04:15,360 --> 00:04:21,440 cost that dictates the budget drastically of how we need to forecast and make sure we 65 00:04:21,440 --> 00:04:24,880 are involved in going, hey, cool, we're going to the cloud. 66 00:04:24,880 --> 00:04:29,520 While that takes X out of the equation where we don't worry about this every five years, 67 00:04:29,520 --> 00:04:31,440 we have this every month. 68 00:04:31,440 --> 00:04:35,200 Are we in line with our budget and are we prepared for that? 69 00:04:35,200 --> 00:04:39,320 And then that corresponds with just replacement of computers and stuff like that. 70 00:04:39,320 --> 00:04:41,240 What is our life cycle replacement? 71 00:04:41,240 --> 00:04:42,440 That dictates the budget. 72 00:04:42,440 --> 00:04:45,840 Are we three years, five years, eight years? 73 00:04:45,840 --> 00:04:46,840 Where are we at? 74 00:04:46,840 --> 00:04:49,800 What are we going to do for our budget replacement? 75 00:04:49,800 --> 00:04:54,920 And being able to be involved in those conversations, again, the key thing that you're going to 76 00:04:54,920 --> 00:04:58,200 learn from us on the end is we want everybody to be successful. 77 00:04:58,200 --> 00:05:01,800 We want everything to be up 100% of the time as much as you guys want to. 78 00:05:01,800 --> 00:05:06,680 That's why we want to be in the room because no one likes to spend money on IT. 79 00:05:06,680 --> 00:05:07,680 We get it. 80 00:05:07,680 --> 00:05:13,520 It's not the pretty budgetary item that anybody likes to see, but unfortunately we run through 81 00:05:13,520 --> 00:05:14,640 everything. 82 00:05:14,640 --> 00:05:21,440 So being part of that chair, being part of that table is so important for us. 83 00:05:21,440 --> 00:05:22,440 Definitely. 84 00:05:22,440 --> 00:05:27,440 And you kind of mentioned things like going to the cloud and projects and planning. 85 00:05:27,440 --> 00:05:30,600 And that's a little bit of my next question. 86 00:05:30,600 --> 00:05:37,840 Is IT admins the importance of asking, what are the roles and responsibilities? 87 00:05:37,840 --> 00:05:43,440 At what point does this project get handed off and who does it get handed off to? 88 00:05:43,440 --> 00:05:48,800 And why is that an important question to ask, those clarifying questions? 89 00:05:48,800 --> 00:05:50,000 Yeah. 90 00:05:50,000 --> 00:05:55,960 So the reason why it's so important to know who's on first and who's on second, I'll help 91 00:05:55,960 --> 00:06:03,760 myself, it was right there, is just for that sheer fact of we're going to maybe stand something 92 00:06:03,760 --> 00:06:06,960 up, get it about halfway, but we're not going to be the one that's going to configure the 93 00:06:06,960 --> 00:06:08,040 accounting software. 94 00:06:08,040 --> 00:06:09,400 So who are we handing off to? 95 00:06:09,400 --> 00:06:11,520 Are we standing off to Timmy or Susie? 96 00:06:11,520 --> 00:06:16,120 Are they going to take over this part of the job and then are we coming back in? 97 00:06:16,120 --> 00:06:19,840 It's this kind of setting everybody up for success that, okay, we have this. 98 00:06:19,840 --> 00:06:21,760 It's also timeline related too. 99 00:06:21,760 --> 00:06:25,160 So our first phase is going to be getting all this squared away. 100 00:06:25,160 --> 00:06:29,000 It's going to take us three months, then it's going to get handed off to this department. 101 00:06:29,000 --> 00:06:37,000 And then leadership, the CEO, everybody like that knows that this project of implementing 102 00:06:37,000 --> 00:06:42,200 X tool or whatever is going to take eight months, but three months from this team and 103 00:06:42,200 --> 00:06:46,440 only three months and then a couple of months to go live and then we do the cut. 104 00:06:46,440 --> 00:06:51,600 All that stuff kind of dictates to who's doing what step and coming back and forth. 105 00:06:51,600 --> 00:06:55,240 And that's kind of where that like, you know, for lack of better words, project manager. 106 00:06:55,240 --> 00:06:57,040 And sometimes we don't have that in the budget. 107 00:06:57,040 --> 00:07:00,880 So that's where we kind of wear multiple hats where we're kind of managing the project, 108 00:07:00,880 --> 00:07:05,360 but that communication is going to be so key that everybody understands, okay, at this 109 00:07:05,360 --> 00:07:09,960 point we are done until the day goes live or something like that. 110 00:07:09,960 --> 00:07:12,400 So yeah, definitely. 111 00:07:12,400 --> 00:07:18,160 So stepping a little bit away from, you know, projects and planning and that side, let's 112 00:07:18,160 --> 00:07:23,360 talk a little bit about your day to day, which could be working with customers, it could 113 00:07:23,360 --> 00:07:30,600 be cybersecurity, data security, privacy, a question, IT admins should bring up to their 114 00:07:30,600 --> 00:07:35,240 C levels is how can we ensure data security and privacy. 115 00:07:35,240 --> 00:07:41,400 And my question to you is why are you involving the C levels with that? 116 00:07:41,400 --> 00:07:43,320 That's your job in your field. 117 00:07:43,320 --> 00:07:48,360 Why are the present and CEO's involved in those conversations? 118 00:07:48,360 --> 00:07:53,600 Yeah, it's really just kind of kind of could be on the same thing about the projects and 119 00:07:53,600 --> 00:07:57,880 stuff like that is this, making sure on the same page, make sure we both understand that 120 00:07:57,880 --> 00:08:03,000 what are we compliant to making sure we understand, make sure they understand what we're compliant 121 00:08:03,000 --> 00:08:06,120 to and that sometimes incur costs. 122 00:08:06,120 --> 00:08:09,840 And the security focus world that we live in and how prevalent security is. 123 00:08:09,840 --> 00:08:13,440 I mean, you can't turn on the news without hearing something nowadays is how do we make 124 00:08:13,440 --> 00:08:16,320 sure we don't hit the five o'clock news? 125 00:08:16,320 --> 00:08:17,320 Absolutely. 126 00:08:17,320 --> 00:08:22,160 And those roles of responsibilities on security is so important as well. 127 00:08:22,160 --> 00:08:23,160 Oh, yes. 128 00:08:23,160 --> 00:08:24,680 Yeah, 100%. 129 00:08:24,680 --> 00:08:28,760 So are we compliant to PCI or HIPAA? 130 00:08:28,760 --> 00:08:30,200 You know, okay, we are. 131 00:08:30,200 --> 00:08:34,560 Okay, that means it requires these guidelines and it's going to be so important that, you 132 00:08:34,560 --> 00:08:40,400 know, it's not to, it's okay to say we don't know or to make sure, hey, I believe as the 133 00:08:40,400 --> 00:08:44,000 IT administrator that we're, we have to be held to this. 134 00:08:44,000 --> 00:08:48,560 Do you know, not saying that you should or should not know Mr. CEO or anything like that, 135 00:08:48,560 --> 00:08:49,960 but do you understand it? 136 00:08:49,960 --> 00:08:53,280 Do you agree that we are compliant to those standards? 137 00:08:53,280 --> 00:08:59,640 Or are you aware of what we need for our insurance and stuff like that to be protected? 138 00:08:59,640 --> 00:09:07,240 So my last question that I think IT admins should be asking their business leaders is 139 00:09:07,240 --> 00:09:11,480 what support can you provide me with my team? 140 00:09:11,480 --> 00:09:19,280 And my question to you, Alex, is why is that advocacy important when it comes to your team? 141 00:09:19,280 --> 00:09:20,960 And what does that kind of mean? 142 00:09:20,960 --> 00:09:27,800 Yeah, so how to support my, how to support the IT team, the IT department and why it's 143 00:09:27,800 --> 00:09:35,640 so important is we touch so many facets of everything that happens in the company. 144 00:09:35,640 --> 00:09:41,120 If you know it or not, we are so intricately involved in everything. 145 00:09:41,120 --> 00:09:43,280 And that also involves staying current. 146 00:09:43,280 --> 00:09:48,560 We're advocating for our engineers to stay certified, you know, if it's once a year or 147 00:09:48,560 --> 00:09:53,240 everything like that and trying to keep us educated, technology is never sleeping and 148 00:09:53,240 --> 00:09:58,720 always evolving and always changing, keeping us on the leading edge of what is going on 149 00:09:58,720 --> 00:09:59,720 only helps the company. 150 00:09:59,720 --> 00:10:04,640 I know it's another expense, that wonderful budget, but I promise it's one of those things 151 00:10:04,640 --> 00:10:09,480 that come back and it also reinvigorates the team when you invest back into them because 152 00:10:09,480 --> 00:10:12,640 they feel like you've got their back, you want them to be successful, you want them 153 00:10:12,640 --> 00:10:13,640 to grow. 154 00:10:13,640 --> 00:10:20,400 And it only helps you as an organization to grow that department by supporting them financially, 155 00:10:20,400 --> 00:10:25,840 and everything like that, and you know, the other potential is if you want to maybe look 156 00:10:25,840 --> 00:10:29,360 into going into a facet, well, let's start up a demo environment. 157 00:10:29,360 --> 00:10:34,240 Yes, there's a little bit of a cost factor into it, but you get two great kickbacks. 158 00:10:34,240 --> 00:10:38,680 You're getting to see the future and you're letting those engineers so I can tell you 159 00:10:38,680 --> 00:10:41,400 are going to have the biggest smile on their face when they get to hear they can go play 160 00:10:41,400 --> 00:10:45,840 in a new test environment and everything like that because they get to go cut their teeth 161 00:10:45,840 --> 00:10:51,000 in new technology and it's just going to make them more invigorated and bring back into 162 00:10:51,000 --> 00:10:52,000 the company. 163 00:10:52,000 --> 00:10:53,000 Definitely, that's great. 164 00:10:53,000 --> 00:10:59,160 So when we talk about these questions and these conversations, how often do you think 165 00:10:59,160 --> 00:11:01,280 these conversations should happen? 166 00:11:01,280 --> 00:11:08,600 And then if you have any advice maybe to an IT admin or manager who's never had this conversation 167 00:11:08,600 --> 00:11:13,800 with their C levels, how do they even bridge that gap? 168 00:11:13,800 --> 00:11:20,280 Yeah, so I think at the minimum it should be once a year and it should be prior to budgets 169 00:11:20,280 --> 00:11:24,640 like a quarter before budget so you can get your budget together because it's important 170 00:11:24,640 --> 00:11:27,400 for you to be prepared for this meeting. 171 00:11:27,400 --> 00:11:29,520 It's not to be defensive. 172 00:11:29,520 --> 00:11:31,320 It's not to come combative in the meeting. 173 00:11:31,320 --> 00:11:37,600 It's just to become prepared and educated so you know what to prepare for. 174 00:11:37,600 --> 00:11:39,160 How to prepare for that meeting? 175 00:11:39,160 --> 00:11:42,440 Just, you know, you know what you need to do for your day to day operations. 176 00:11:42,440 --> 00:11:44,680 You might not know the dollars and cents and that's okay. 177 00:11:44,680 --> 00:11:47,400 That's part of this conversation. 178 00:11:47,400 --> 00:11:51,200 But don't be afraid to just go and, you know, knock on their door, put something on their 179 00:11:51,200 --> 00:11:53,600 calendar and have that meeting. 180 00:11:53,600 --> 00:11:57,200 And even if it's like a quick 15 minute at first and say this is what I want to meet 181 00:11:57,200 --> 00:12:00,520 with, you know, what information can we make this fruitful? 182 00:12:00,520 --> 00:12:04,800 I know it's going to be scary to come into that meeting for your first time if you've 183 00:12:04,800 --> 00:12:09,040 never had it before because, you know, it's the CEO or something like that. 184 00:12:09,040 --> 00:12:13,240 If you don't have a like a CTO or something like that, that's kind of helping you advocate 185 00:12:13,240 --> 00:12:15,800 for this stuff. 186 00:12:15,800 --> 00:12:16,800 So just come prepared. 187 00:12:16,800 --> 00:12:20,040 And like I said, come with an open mind. 188 00:12:20,040 --> 00:12:23,440 If you haven't been involved, that means it's not that they haven't thought of it. 189 00:12:23,440 --> 00:12:27,240 It's just maybe, you know, or anything like that or they don't want you in the room. 190 00:12:27,240 --> 00:12:31,240 Sometimes it's we're forgotten sometimes in IT and it's okay. 191 00:12:31,240 --> 00:12:36,280 So you know, speak up for yourself and just say, hey, this is what it, this is what I'd 192 00:12:36,280 --> 00:12:37,280 like to talk about. 193 00:12:37,280 --> 00:12:40,000 I just want to make sure we're all on the same page and we're setting up for success 194 00:12:40,000 --> 00:12:41,960 for the next year. 195 00:12:41,960 --> 00:12:42,960 Love it. 196 00:12:42,960 --> 00:12:48,640 Love it so much that self advocacy, the team and the success of the company, everyone working 197 00:12:48,640 --> 00:12:50,240 together is great. 198 00:12:50,240 --> 00:12:51,240 Thank you. 199 00:12:51,240 --> 00:12:52,520 Thank you so much for joining us today. 200 00:12:52,520 --> 00:12:53,520 Thank you. 201 00:12:53,520 --> 00:12:54,800 Really informative. 202 00:12:54,800 --> 00:12:59,400 If you enjoyed this podcast, please like, subscribe. 203 00:12:59,400 --> 00:13:00,400 Love to hear from you. 204 00:13:00,400 --> 00:13:05,120 If you have questions or a topic you'd like us to discuss, reach out to us at info at 205 00:13:05,120 --> 00:13:13,280 cIT-net.com or head out to our website cIT-net.com slash podcast and we'll be back next week 206 00:13:13,280 --> 00:13:38,560 with an all new episode.