There are many compelling reasons to engage in a
computer-support”>proactive service
versus reactive service would appear to be a fairly intuitive
concept. Most of us buy into the necessity of proactive automobile maintenance, preventative
home maintenance as well as our own health care. Yet, it is typically the idea we buy into and
not the actual execution of the idea. It generally takes our vehicle making some kind of alien
noise before we decide to act. When was the last time you changed the filters in your drinking
water or changed your home air filters? I am guessing it would take a threatening note from your
physician before you decided to take those thirty minute health walks?

Technology is no different in the need for a proactive model versus a reactive one.
Unfortunately, it often takes smoke coming from the building before we decide to implement
what we know to be common sense. I recently encountered an example of two customers on
different sides of this coin. Both customers were businesses we had provided services for in the
past. I sat down with each owner to discuss the need for a more proactive response model that
would allow us to provide better value and effectively protect their environments. One business
understood the value of technology and was very willing to invest in it. The other was not. In
fact, that owner’s quote to me was “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it”. My response in retrospect
should have been, “unless it costs twenty five times more to fix it once it does break.” What
happened to the business who decided to maintain a reactionary model was they were
compromised by a ransomware virus within sixty days. The cost to recover the infected data
from the ransomware creators was more than the cost of our entire annual service offering. I
advised the owner that should they decide to pay the ransom there would be no guarantees it
would decrypt all or any of the information. In addition, even if they successfully decrypt their
company data they would still be very susceptible to similar attacks.

This story is meant to illustrate how a willingness to invest in technology can ultimately affect
the future of a company. A few, simple proactive steps allows for the easy avoidance of
catastrophic disasters and the associated costs and stress that follow.

Troubleshooting issues after they occur is much more costly than taking the appropriate
measures to prevent them in the first place. This is true with our cars, homes, health and
certainly technology. “If it ain’t broke, make sure it doesn’t!”