 Aloha and welcome to this week's edition of Business in Hawai'i. I'm Jayla in Yanagida, and we're broadcasting live from the ThinkTech studios in Piner Plaza in downtown Honolulu. If you want to tune in live, we are live at www.thinktechhawaii.com. You may also subscribe to our programs and get on our mailing list at that site. The theme of business in Hawai'i is to share with you local stories of local businesses by local people. Our guests share with us how they were able to build successes in our challenging business environment. John Stranberg from Hawai'i Tech Support is in the studio with us today. John is the Business Solutions Director over at Hawai'i Tech Support. I know you wear numerous titles, so that's just one of them. Welcome to the show, John. I know that you're a super busy person, but why don't you tell us a little bit about yourself and what you've got going on these days? Well, first of all, my job does keep me very busy. Between working there, finding new business avenues, I'm also very open in the community service area. I'm a member of the Rotary Club of East Honolulu, which I just completed my year term as president, and I'm also on the board for Junior Achievement of Hawai'i. And I'm also working with the Rotary 2020 Convention, which is bringing 20,000 to 25,000 Rotarians from around the world to Hawai'i in June of 2020. So my plate's pretty full, but thank you for inviting me on the show to talk about business. Well, we're very lucky to have you, and today what we wanted to talk about was outsourcing. Now, outsourcing has become a buzzword in the business community. Did you tell us what outsourcing is and what that means to a business or owner? Yeah, simply put, outsourcing is the art of bringing in other talent other than your internal pool of people to do a service or provide expertise on something you as a business owner may not be able to provide. A great idea of outsourcing is using an HR company to come in and handle your HR issues or handle your payroll, your accountant may not even be an employee, but an outsourced person from CPA firm, for instance. My company does is we do the IT side of things. So tell me about IT outsourcing. I mean, what things in IT can you outsource? You can outsource everything from the equipment that you have in your office to the services behind it, the help desk phone calls, anything dealing with tech can be outsourced now. So what space does Hawai'i tech support fit in? We're at a very specific niche market. We support the small business owner here in Hawai'i. So if you have a small five-person office up to a 200 user office, that's where we fit in. There's other companies in Hawai'i that are bigger. However, it's difficult to support them. So you mentioned all the different aspects to IT outsourcing. Does Hawai'i tech support do it all? We can do it all. We can do parts of it, but we prefer to do it all. Simply put, when you're managed by one entity, you control the entire network and do everything you can within it. So you had mentioned that Hawai'i tech support services a smaller business. But could there be a large business that needs IT outsourcing? And should that be a consideration for them? Yes, it should. We find a lot of companies that needs very specific skill sets call us all the time. The latest calls have always been having to do with cybersecurity. I want to get breached. How do we keep us from getting breached? Or what's my security levels like? So we're able to come in and do a third-party consult. Penetration testing has been a popular call these days. I want to test our network. Can we have you come in and try to breach our firewalls or breach into our offices? And that's something that we love to do because it's very fun to do. So you're talking about a bunch of tech guys going in and trying to break my system? Not break it per se, but more of let's show you how you can get into your system. And then you can find ways to fix it before it happens. So you were saying that one of the hottest spots now for looking at IT outsourcing is cybersecurity. So recently in the media, we've heard even locally of some breaches. Can you talk about some of those? I mean, the biggest one of people's minds of late has been Zippies. Zippies came out and said their credit card database was breached or leaked out there. And there have been instances of people getting credit card charges as far away as Maine and Midwest from Hawaii. So it's pretty daunting when a company like Zippies, which has a very robust IT department, can be breached. That means they're after anybody and everyone that's available. Okay. So say I hear on media or I get an email or what have you from the company who experienced a breach. What does that mean to me as a consumer? Well, this is often a better business bureau site, but they always say if you think you were breached or had a credit card leaked or your personal information out there is a check your credit reports. Make sure there's no additions or something going wrong with your credit scores. The three credit unions experienced TransUnion and Equifax, of course, would be where you want to check. You also want to check your bank accounts, see if there's any unusual withdrawals or any other information. Lately, I just heard about one this morning. It has to do with not your information, but a group of people's information. Synthetic ID theft. I don't know if that's a new slang out there or not, but it's taking part of everyone's credit or their identification and forming a new human. So I could take your social security number, someone else's birth date, someone else's address and create this virtual new human and apply for a credit card and start making charges. So in a situation like that, who does it affect? Typically, it affects all three individuals because parts of their credit get attached, but over time, a fake credit card charge, you can write off and say, hey, it's not me charging it and they take care of that quickly for you. Okay, so that's what it means to me as a consumer. What does that mean to the business? It's reputation. The last thing I want to hear is my company name on the news for doing something bad. A breach is a very, very bad thing to be known for. So if I understand breach correctly from your definition, it's when somebody gets into a business system. Why would that be the business's reputation? They're not the ones that did you. You as a consumer have to trust who you're doing business with and by that is you're giving me information about you for you to do business with me. I'm trusting you as a business owner to take care of my data, whether it's my name, my social security number, my credit card and information, my banking information. That way, if anything happens, you're responsible as a business owner. So recently, we've heard of zippies, Target, Lowe's. There's a lot out there. A lot of it goes unreported because there's certain minimum thresholds and it's hard to say what the thresholds are based on the industry. But typically, I'll give you an example of healthcare. HIPAA Compliance states that if your patient records are breached or lost, up to 500 is the minimum. 500 or less, you don't need to report to anyone. 500 over, you have to report. And by reporting, you have to identify it with the federal government. Then you have to notify the newspaper and the news media that these people were compromised or their records are out there. And so a lot of times when we are victims or maybe just included in a breach, we get messages that say, check your credit report and you're able to get a credit report free. Or is that all part of the regulation? It's not part of the regulations. It's part of having to inform you and consumer. What they do above and beyond just information is on that company to provide. For instance, Equifax after their breach had offered free credit monitoring, which, yeah, they'll monitor your credit and say, hey, Dalen, there's something wrong with your credit, but that's where it stops. They don't actually try to help you remediate that. That's all the news of consumer. So we talked about cybersecurity and the breaches and you also brought up HIPAA. What are some of the trending issues for businesses now that'll cause them to seek IT outsourcing? Well, besides security, a lot of our customers are coming up to us and saying, you know, my technology is aging. I'm still running Windows 2008 server. I'm running Windows 7 still. And it's time for an upgrade. And we get to do a lot about going in there and the engineering behind it. The planning does take some time, but implementing is what we do best is work with you as a business owner and say, this is where you need to be based upon your current workflow. And with that workflow, we get you to that point, whether it's immediately or in baby steps along the way. What are some of the outsourcing needs that a small business would need? I mean, a small business, maybe five employees? Usually with the small business like that, it's help desk. All of a sudden, what's my password? It's Monday morning and I show up at work. I forgot my password or all of a sudden I can't print for some reason to my printer. Typically, a lot of small business owners, they have automatic updates turned on with the Windows and Apple computers. And sometimes when the updates happen, things break in between. And that's where you need a company like us to be able to stop that or fix that before you get to work in the morning. So lots of small businesses would set up their technology to launch their business and they're pretty committed to it. It works. They've got it working the way they want. And then they're supposed to do an update. And sometimes we hear that these updates mess things up or they don't jive with some of the other software that they're using. So then what? Again, that's where a company like us can come in. We would go in there and look at your systems, what software is running, and just do a quick analysis and say, okay, this version of QuickBooks won't work with your new computer system or it's too antiquated to work this way or your computers aren't new enough to use a latest version of the software. So then we'd work with you as a business owner, determine this is what you need to do next. So it appears that if an IT outsourced company engages with a business that the outsourcing firm is working on a daily basis to monitor technology for these companies. Yes. How we work as a company is we monitor 24-7, 365 days out of the year. What that does is we get alerted by the computers and the networks and someone saying, hey, your switch is acting up. We might need to be replaced. Someone's hard drive is getting full. We need to do some other work to it. And it lets us stop the problems before they happen so that you as a business owner can go on with your day. I don't know about you, but most businesses can't live without their computers these days. So at what point then as a business do I say I'm not going to outsource and I should hire somebody in-house? Well, typically we look at size. If you're a business owner with a couple hundred people, that's enough people to quantify having a couple of in-house guys. And even if you are a business with a couple of in-house techs that work on your network, sometimes you're going to need specialized help in terms of cybersecurity and setting up engineering of your network and just overall design. As a company we're able to provide all of that for this business. So you have clients who do have IT departments and how do you support them? What is your role in that? For the most part, recently we've been the overall systems engineer and administration. So we would handle all the server repair, fixes, updates, and patches. We would work on their network and make sure it's up and running. The in-house IT departments usually tend to operate with a desktop side where, hey, I can't get this to print today, can you help me out? And you have the company computer guy show up at your desk and fix your printer issue. Do you show up at your client's work site and fix a desktop or a workstation? If you're a full-service client of ours, yes. So an IT outsourcing firm, there are different levels to service. Oh, yes. It could be strictly monitoring where we just tell you, hey, there's something wrong. You should let your IT department know. Or B, we call or they call us and we'll fix the issue. Or C, is we notify everyone and show up in person to fix ourselves. Fantastic. Let's talk more about what you do for your clients and what some of their needs are and then how to determine if someone needs an IT consulting firm or someone to outsource to. We're going to take a short break. We are going to be back in one minute. This is Business in Hawaii. We'll see you here shortly. There was a new woman who lived in a shoe. She had so many children, she didn't know what to do. She gave them some broth without any bread and kissed them all soundly and put them to bed. Hunger is a story we can end. End it at feedingamerica.org. Welcome back. This is Business in Hawaii. Today we're talking with John Strandberg of Hawaii Tech Support. Before we went to break, we were talking about the types of services that Hawaii Tech Support or any IT outsourcing firm would offer. But let's talk a little bit about when a company calls you to say, hey, I need some help. How do you walk them through the process of whether or not they need an IT outsource? Well, first of all, everyone needs IT support. So that's an easy question to answer. Yes, you will need it. But a lot of companies like to reach out to us to ask questions regarding cost. What's it cost to do an outsourced IT system and what's it mean to me? And just keep in mind that hiring a qualified internal tech is very costly. You have to factor in pay and salary, fringe benefits, insurance, time off, vacation, sick, everything you can think of. Plus you got to make sure they're trained. So you have to pay for their training. So your cost for an internal IT person could be in the thousands every month. Or you can pay a fraction of that and have an outsource company do it all. So I'm a brand new company and I'm going to say, hey, John, do I need to outsource my IT? Are there some steps that you're going to walk me through to determine if really that is my need? It is. There are many steps to this. It starts with the business plan. We look at how big your startup, we look at how big your company is going to be to start with, how many employees you intend on having right away. And everyone thinks a startup company will only have one person. That's the owner starting things off. In a lot of cases, that's not true. Some startups can have as many as 10 to 20 and everyone has a computer. Then you have to go, how are they going to get networked? And in my work over the last four years at White Tech, I've discovered that business plans are totally missing the IT component. Yes, I own a laptop, but that's not enough to start a company with. You have to plan for the next stages. So if I call you and I say, okay, so my first step is to have a business plan, do you help me with that? We can give you guidance. We're not specialists in writing business plans, never claimed to be, but would recommend that, hey, you should include some form of technology and expense into your business plan for future growth. So what's the next step? Well, you control costs and expense. That's one reason why people call us. The next steps, focus on your business. Let the IT experts do their job, which is make sure your IT works. You come in in the morning, you turn on your computer, it's on. Other than that, let us do everything behind the scene so you can focus on what you do best. If you're a baker, do you really want to sit behind a computer first thing in the morning and go, I can't get this to start? Or do you want to start making dough and starting the production of making bread or pastries? So from business plan to letting you handle my IT, will you let me know first of all, what IT resources I need? We would ask questions of you as a business owner. Where do you see yourself tomorrow? How's your business going to grow in the next six to months to a year? And do you plan on adding more bodies, changing locations? Are you expanding physically your space? And we start working with you. We offer a service that very many companies fail to take advantage of with certain IT companies is that we provide virtual CIO services. So you have someone in your company as the accountant. You have someone that's marketing and sales. You have an overall leader. But a lot of companies forget to bring in that CIO person. So being a provider, we can come in and help work with the board if need be, the business owner to help determine where they need to go with IT. Okay, so you're going to tell me where I need to go with the IT and then you're going to set it up for me? Yes, as part of our service, yes. So we actually employ a very well-trained staff of technicians that they've seen everything from the beginning of a computer to high-end Cisco switches and devices. So we've seen it all. We've seen enough of it in different industries where we can help virtually any business get started. So if I'm a brand new business and all I have is an office, my IT outsource firm will be able to design everything for me. Yes, we can. Right up to where your cables need to go. We could run your cabling for you if need be. Do you need Wi-Fi service? Do you need security behind all that? Do you need to work remotely? We would ask questions and spend quite a bit of time in the planning stages. So once it's deployed, it's done right and you can concentrate on your business. Is IT something that can be fit to a budget? We try. You tell me what your budget is and we'll tell you how we can do the work based on that parameter. But a lot of times with small businesses, they think they can go over to your local Best Buy and buy something off the shelf there and use it for a business. I see that a lot and that's the wrong decision to make. In fact, most of it is consumer grade so it's not meant to be on 24-7. If you bought a $300 laptop and left it on 24-7, it might last you six months. Really? Yeah. So what's the next step? So with that access to most current technology is something that people forget about, is because we work with so many vertical industries out there, we see things that you may not have seen or heard of and we could say, hey, Dalen, we've seen this work at this firm and this is how they use it. And I think it worked great with you and your workflow. Let us show you how. And it's a great way of seeing and then all of a sudden your business can grow just from IT use. Great, because as a business owner, IT may not be my space and so I may need someone to say you should take a look at what the market holds for you. Even with latest versions of software, we've seen people say I'm using QuickBooks 2003 still and it's like, well, there's QuickBooks in the cloud now. You don't need to maintain a server or another computer. Really? And we show them new ways of doing business. It increases their workflow and revenues. Some people are not open to change. Some people are very resistant. So then what do you say about the latest and the greatest technology? Well, we share our enthusiasm, of course, with them and let them decide. It's your business, ultimately. And we're just there as a partner and someone that can guide you through that process. So you are able to work around what I would like to maintain in terms of my system, even if it's not the latest and the greatest? Yes, it's a very held back, yes, but we do work within your parameters as much as possible. Okay, great. What's the next step? Well, with our company, we do offer that 24-7 monitoring and support, which is critical because even if you had someone internal, they're not there 24-7. They have to sleep, they do eat, they have family and they need days off. So what we're able to provide with our staff and our tools is to be on your network 24-7 watching things so that you don't have to be up wondering, is my server going to live till morning? That's our responsibility. So that was step four and step five. Well, we help minimize risk. And by minimizing risk, I'm talking about making sure you have backups in place. You have something to continue your business should something catastrophic happen. A building caught fire, where are your backups? Are they on site, which is not recommended? Or is it being backed up to the cloud, which is what we highly recommend. So we help minimize your risk. We also have minimized risk by making sure you make the right decisions with the appropriate data. So if you told me that you have a 10-user office and you want to get away from QuickBooks as your accounting software and wanted to buy this $100,000 accounting system, we might say that might be a little bit of a overkill for that 10-user office unless you plan on growing to meet that demand within the next six months. Nice. And so step six. Step six is strategic consulting, which a lot of companies forget to do. It's like, you know, let's expand. We're growing. We went from 10 employees this month. We're going to add 15 next month. So now we have 25 people. But you didn't consult IT to say, we're going to expand and put an office over here, but nothing has been planned out. So that part of the growth and planning isn't done with IT usually. We usually come in and have to make magic happen because you're putting an office in the middle of nowhere with little to no internet access, but you want them to have everything you have at the home office. Okay. Give us some time. We'll figure out a solution for you. But if you plan that ahead of time, we might say that might not be the best location right now. It will make things work. And step seven. Increased productivity is where people love to see in their business. Who doesn't want to make more money? I like making money. That means I can pay our staff and get everyone happy and take care of their family. So with IT, we make sure your workflows continue and runs fluidly. And you're not worried about is this going to break today or let us worry about that. We make sure everything works for you. So in looking at IT outsourcing, I need to know where I'm going to go if I'm a startup or if I'm an existing business. It's not just where you're going to go. It's where you are now. A lot of times we walk into companies. They don't even know how many computers they own and what's on our network. And then I need to talk to a professional to see what can be done. Talk through a budget, talk through some planning, get some support from the outsourcing firm, and then off to the races. If it were that easy, yes. But all that does take time. Everyone thinks, hey, if I call an IT company today and I want a new server installed next week, is this going to happen? I wish it were the truth. But in truth, we need to spend some time planning it out, making sure it doesn't impact your business badly. Because installing a new server is fairly a quick and easy thing for most companies like us. But the planning behind it to make sure that it's not impacting your business day-to-day operations, that's where it takes the length of our time. So tell me about the types of businesses that Hawaii Tech support services. We have everyone in different verticals. We have architects, engineers. We have quite a few non-profits, believe it or not, who actually call and need our services, financial planning associations. We have healthcare, and we're working with the Federal Credit Union now. So we talked about how to start or how to decide if I need IT outsourcing. But what happens if I just have a problem that I need you to fix? Can I call Hawaii Tech support? We do work on projects as well as far as taking on clients. What the project needs to be meaningful for the client and us. So if folks out there want to get in touch with you to see about your other services, or perhaps even start talking to you about the cybersecurity issues that are forthcoming and that are looming, where can they reach you? Well, you can do a quick Google search, Hawaii Tech support. We should pop up as number one. We named our company appropriately for that. Best ways to reach out to us via phone, that's 808-535-9700, and we'll be happy to talk to anyone that gives us a call. Do you have an email address? I do. My email address for anyone who wants an email is Jay as in John, S as in Strandberg, at hitechsupport.net. Very nice. Thank you so much for joining us today. I think that the field of IT outsourcing is out there and a lot of business owners don't know if you're too expensive, or if that's what I need, or am I too small, and I think that you've answered a lot of those questions for us. Yeah, remember, your first call to us is free. My visiting your office to work with you, determining your needs are absolutely free, and then from there we can talk about pricing. Fantastic. Thank you so much. We are out of time, and again, thanks to John Strandberg for joining us, and a very big thank you to the production staff here in the studio. If you would like to be a guest on the show, please email your information to shows at thinktechhawaii.com. Business in Hawaii airs every Thursday at two o'clock, and we look forward to seeing you here next week.