In this episode, Nathan Sirois from Balsam Technologies talks about how professional services firms can use managed IT support to protect client data, enable secure remote work, and plan technology around growth. He explains why proactive IT strategy matters for firms that depend on employee productivity and client responsiveness.
John Maher: Hi, I’m John Maher. I’m here today with Nathan Sirois, Support Engineer at Balsam Technologies, a managed IT services company based in Gloucester, Massachusetts, offering cybersecurity, IT infrastructure, network support, cloud migrations, data backup, and more. Today, we’re talking about managed IT for business and professional services. Welcome, Nathan.
Nathan Sirois: Hey, John. Thanks for having me.
Managed IT Needs for Professional Services Firms
John: Absolutely. Nathan, what makes managing IT for companies like accounting firms, law offices, consultants, and other professional service firms different from supporting other types of businesses, especially when employee time and client responsiveness are things that directly affect revenue?
Nathan: I would say for professional service firms, the biggest thing that we see is there’s a lot more technology and IT that actually comes into play in your day-to-day. Most of the services that you’re delivering, you’re communicating over email, you got online platforms, you’re supporting clients with. Maybe you have people come into your office on occasion. But your technology really drives your growth and your revenue.
So with professional service firms, there’s a lot more consideration into things like cloud platforms and backups. Cybersecurity is often a focus of a lot of those firms because those firms know that they need a lot more technology and so do the companies supporting you with things like insurance. A lot of the compliance standards and applications for cyber insurance and similar needs for compliance and other qualifications for your organization can often require a lot more effort than your brick and mortar, mom and pop shop that doesn’t require as much technology.
Protecting Confidential Client Data
John: Right. And then a lot of these types of firms, like accounting firms, obviously deal with sensitive financial information, and law firms obviously deal with private information as well. How can professional service firms like this protect confidential client documents and financial information and communications without making everyday work unnecessarily difficult for their employees?
Nathan: Yeah, I think what it comes down to for most of those organizations is really having a clear idea of what your employees need access to and what they don’t. Really clearly defining their job roles and delivering that information back to your IT department so that they’re segmented to have access to the correct documents they need, the correct licenses and other materials that they need access to, to do their jobs.
Because most breaches honestly come from people having access to things they’re not supposed to have access to and accidentally sharing that stuff out or just not even being aware that they could be a loophole that somebody could get around certain security parameters. So I think it starts first with identifying what your employees need access to and making sure that, technically, you have all of your platforms set correctly to limit people to their needed resources without making it a headache and making it clear to them as well, this is what you need access to, this is who you go to if you need access to something else, and just clearly defining those roles.
Secure Remote Access for Professional Services Firms
John: Okay. And with employees now increasingly working from home, or maybe they work at a client location, or maybe the firm has multiple offices, what should firms do to provide secure and reliable access to files and email and other business applications when they’re maybe not in the main office?
Nathan: Yeah, I think a lot of our clients have transitioned from moving localized applications and server support that they’ve had before to more cloud platforms. We assisted one client with a migration to Intune, both for all of their databases, managing all of their devices, and it really alleviated a lot of headaches that they were having because of this transition for people working remotely. They were just running into issues that they didn’t have when they were in the office.
So I would say the first thing comes with sort of analyzing where your holdups are for access for certain platforms, see where you can migrate to cloud solutions. And if you can’t migrate to a cloud solution and need localized applications and support, keeping a security first mind in those situations to make sure that anyone remoting into your office or your sites is securely being managed and monitored. Especially because, even if you set up someone securely to work remotely on something that’s back in your office, if you don’t have some sort of monitoring solution or advanced security looking into that, it could become compromised and you wouldn’t know until your organization’s been hacked.
And that also can go for, as well, the physical hardware products. Like with Intune, you can do things like remotely wipe devices. So say you’re the CEO of a large professional service firm, 150 people, and you’re at a coffee shop and you walk out the door and forget your laptop. Shoot, it’s gone in 30 minutes.
You could have some nice older woman grabbed it and gave it to the front desk person or somebody that she thought it belonged to who’s walking out the door and they could be a harmless pedestrian that just accidentally ended up with your laptop, but it could also end up in the hands of somebody who could get into all of your accounts and just access that sensitive information that you care about.
So platforms like Intune that allow you to remotely wipe devices should a situation like that arise, or even if someone broke into your car, stole your laptop. Those are platforms that we stand behind and encourage clients to consider when there’s more remote work being involved for their professional service firm.
Signs You Have Outgrown Reactive IT Support
John: Right. You talk a lot about reactive IT support and how a lot of companies wait until something goes wrong, something breaks, something gets hacked, and then they call their IT company for support. What are some warning signs that indicate that a professional services firm has outgrown that kind of informal or reactive IT support?
Nathan: I would say when your organization feels like it’s fitting into more of a mold for your IT provider than them assisting you with forming your own mold for your organization, that might be a pretty good indicator that you’re still working with a reactive company. It might be a organization of 10, 15 people, but if your IT provider isn’t willing to work with you on a customized solution that fits all of your goals and expectations within reason, then you probably want to look into either a larger provider or just somebody that’s going to take more time and intentionality to really help your organization.
That could be to meet budgeting expectations, that could be to meet security expectations, it could be just for ease of use or convenience. It could be the CEO likes a certain platform and wants to know how to implement it. And maybe it’s not a platform that your managed service provider is used to using, but if you don’t have experts that are able to come in and assist you with the changing times, you’re probably still working with a pretty reactive provider.
And even if they are a larger provider that has the resources to be proactive, they’re operating in a reactive mindset. So making sure that you have a provider that will come to you first when you need help and make sure to figure out exactly how to optimize your organization’s IT strategy for your needs is essential in having a proactive managed IT support provider.
IT Planning for Growth, Costs, and Downtime
John: So tell me a little bit more about that and how a managed IT provider can help a firm’s leadership plan for growth and control technology costs, reduce downtime, and avoid unexpected disruptions.
Nathan: The biggest way that we’re able to help provide for our larger clients that really need that full proactive support…things are changing. We know their organizations are growing, and we need to be constantly on their IT and where they want to go and have a cohesive vision. We schedule annual reviews or even sometimes quarterly just to be formulating plans for where the firm is at currently and where they want to go and making sure that they have strategies in place to really meet their growth.
We have one firm that they’ve planned out sort of their next steps and they’re planning on having a number of new hires, probably 10 to 15 over the next year. And with that, they’re sort of changing up their entire plan for their standard workstation deployments. And so we’ve spent a number of hours coming back and forth with them planning on exactly what they’re going to need for this new type of job role that’s opening up at their company that they’re planning to hire a large number of employees for, and just making sure that they’re all adequately equipped to fill those roles.
So it can be as simple as just planning out new hire situations and job descriptions and the tech involved in that, but it could be migrating an entire massive accounting platform for an organization and we’ve got experience doing both of those things.
John: All right. Well, that’s really great information, Nathan. Thanks again for speaking with me today.
Nathan: Absolutely, John.
John: And for more information, you can visit the Balsam Technologies website at balsamtechnologies.com or call 978-281-3339.
