Supply chains aren’t historically built on a foundation of flexibility. They are anything but agile, and definitely can’t anticipate quick changes in the marketplace. Unfortunately for all of us here at Atlantis IT, and our members who run their own IT companies, both your business, our business, and our clients suffer from the fact that supply chains are built on fragmented systems that are unable to withstand sudden supply bottlenecks. When paired with demand shifts (kinda like the one we’ve been riding out for the past two years), things get extra wild.
As a group of IT professionals who provide IT services for many, like our long-time partner TCR Solution, we all service non-profits, medical practices, veterinary clinics, fire districts, law firms, and churches. You also must well aware of what goes on behind-the-scenes at our service-oriented clients. They work relentlessly to continue supporting the community through the economic turmoil.
As a network community of IT wizards, we are pooling together to do all that we can to support businesses with IT services during the disruption in the supply chain. There are many things we as an IT community can do to help keep our clients businesses thriving. (TCR Solutions, a community member of Atlantis IT offers up their Service Offerings here). Like the team at TCR, and Atlantis IT, you are masterful at top notch cyber security, custom IT solutions, 24/7 network security monitoring, data backups, computer repairs. But we are all currently limited in how quickly we can get hardware. Things like computers, repair parts, printers, cables, communication systems, specialized batteries, access points, etc… not only are they taking longer to get, we are also seeing costs consistently going up as supply and demand are still reverberating.
Because of this disruption, we recommend that all IT professionals proactively reach out to their clients before years’ end, especially for your clients who are non-profits and government entities with more rigid budget parameters. This is the time of year that we encourage our Atlantis IT network to schedule budget planning meetings to help your clients allocate their budget properly for the next fiscal year.
Some things we recommend collaborating on with your IT clients on in this meeting are: organizational goals, technology needs for the coming budget year, and what hardware might need replacing. For example, if a client has 8 workstations that are starting to show their age, it’s a good way to build trust by helping them determine which ones can be simply upgraded more affordably with extra memory, vs completely replacing them. Often, you can leverage an extra couple of years out of a system, but sometimes it helps to evaluate which power users could benefit from a faster more efficient work station. It’s our job as IT professionals to help get the right staff outfitted with the right machines.
What do you do to help walk your clients through budgetary planning in supply chain disruptions? Ultimately, we want to save our clients time, money, and keep all of us from getting crippled by the supply chain shortages.
To learn more or talk about the advantages of joining the Atlantis IT community, contact us today!