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l l 14 - V» \l l ill l K) ("HRONN I). - “Pdllt‘uldi. August C Joli Local tech firm takes the worry out of] T for small to medium businesses 11780an N said Balch. “We'll hear about issues Chm'lif‘e 51017 ~ about our customers before they do, and we’ll go into fix them and he team at Carefree lT could .... ff?» 0 . they’re not even aware. especially I see the big storm coming a -~ “g... i ' ’ overnight oron weekends few weeks ago as they were 73 ' A “They'll come in on a Monday remote monitoring their clients' P z ' and not even know that we've done operations from Windsor to ". I anything," Waterloo as the winds and rain ' V i "We take pride in our proactive howled through Southern Ontario approach," said Stephanie “Our monitoring was going < A A 4 Petrashko, business development crazy,” said John Balch, CEO and ; ' ’ , _. specialist with Carefree IT. “We pro- owner of the Waterloo-based IT ., x vide services instead of reacting to support company. “Alerts go to our problems" central board and we get notified Belch said they work with com- by them and we could see it all parties to make sure that their lT is happening. aligned with their business goals. "It's interesting because we can and that includes making recom~ follow the route of a storm as our mendations about where they clients are affected.“ should be spending their money tti While some small business ownâ€" updating. maintaining anti repair- ers were left wondering whether ing their systems. their networks. servers and com- “We act as a partner. so when it's putt'r systems would be opera- budget time, we can show them ttonal come Monday morning. the some of the priorities in keeping t Items of the Waterloo-based infor~ with their goals." said lialch “it's tttation technology services com- more than my computers dovm fix party had the security of knowing re it â€" we try to operate at a higher they would be up and running. he level than that." (arefree could address the prob- Carefree iT CEO and ownerlohn Bath said hisservlce is trying to take the headaches out of If for small business His technical representatives lems of powers outages and sys- Owners. “WW“ “0“ also provide something that is tents outages remotely to make sometime is rare in dealing With l'l sure that their clients would operâ€" would also be important for busi- .’ stretchingall the way to Ottawa. preventing them and break out of professionals â€" customer service ate seamlessly when they reopened nesses of about to to 100 people â€" "lT people are expensive and that costly cycle. that doesn't talk down to their for busmess. who make up most of the employâ€" they tend to move around a lot," "What we started doing right clients aboutthetechnical issues. “You can see the storm pro em out there â€" to have similar pro- said Balch. "It's a headache to man- from the start was flat~fee monthly “They appreciate that we can messing,“ said Balch. "But once the tedious in place and decided to go age and train them. and once you contracts based on the size of the take these technical terms and power is back. if things don't go out on his own to sentice that grow- get them trained they can go some company." said Balch. “So it didn't explain them in a non-demeaning back up we'll go in to make sure ing market, where else. It’s rare that it's not matter how many problems you way." said Balch. “That something they’re back up." “I identified a niche and knew cheaper to oumuroe it." had. it was a flat fee. we stress very snowy â€" commuâ€" Taking the worry of out IT for that there were a lot of companies Balch said that they’ve managed "It aligned our goals with the nitration inplain English” small to medium bustnesses has struggling with H," said Balch to put a team in place to provide company goals, because we don‘t He said he understands why been the mission of Carefree IT “They weren't large enough to hire expertise in all the critical areas wantyou toluveproblems' kind of essential service they can since Belch founded the company their own internallT staff, from email. sewers to database Prevention. monitoring and provide. more than I3 years ago. “They needed someone to an as management. “Our entire focus is planning for the replacement of "We all have computers and we He had worked for bigger insti- their Virtual ”department.” to take the lT worry away from products that wear out or get out- depend on them." said Balch. “Wt- tutions. like local insurance com lht-y've grown to provided all business owners so that anything dated help to ensure that IT issues lake IT out of their list of Concerns panics. but soon realiied the the ll solutions a including if related. welook after them.’ are at a minimum. and it is a busi- Our service plans are all inclusive. importance of having seamless I l design, maintenant e, updating l‘he other thing they provide is a rims tool instead ofa Qua centre. and they know what they‘re IT crisis operations was crucial to a comm security and vinis pron-dim â€" for way to end the break/fix cycle that “We invested quite heavily in are going to be for the year,“ nit-s bottom line. mon- than It businesses including a lot clients can get into. It's not just tools, so we monitor our customers For more information go to llt‘ thought that pum- of mind ont- that has “to operations about fixing problems it's about networks front top to bottom 24/7." www.(‘arefreelt.ca t it“ 0 , ,__ E VINYL CLEANER KIT m .89 79 5:33” in 1.67 , 2.99 s; minimum t r . Vinyl or LVT m ; “mun Sib‘H’bONSEttv hutrtt. carat taunt-r.â€" ' “Al“