In Hong Kong, many SMEs turn to part-time amateur 'computer helpers'. They are often computer sales representatives with little training. They charge cheap, and promise to be able to do any job. Do you think it a perfect solution for SMEs? In reality, hiring 'computer helpers' could save cost is a SME myth. The origin of this myth is that many SME in Hong Kong do not understand the huge difference between home and corporate IT systems. From daily operations glitches, lack of risk management, improper resource planning, to the lost of development opportunities, the destruction caused by unprofessional IT management is staggering.

Business IT system management is a professional discipline, and requires highly trained professional experience. The American IT industries have detailed IT system management solution guidelines for IT professionals to follow. It ensures high-quality corporate IT management service and guarantees the procedures are up-to-date.

	Real-time professional technical support
	Regular system maintenance and check-ups
	Disaster prevention and handling
	Resource planning and auditing
	System analysis, design, acquisition, integration, and deployment
	Corporate IT education and training
	IT technology development updates and professional advises
	Technical solutions (custom software development, e-commerce solutions, office automation, hacker detection ...etc)

	General technical support
	Hardware/Software installation

Risk hiring amateur 'computer helpers' to manage business IT systems is like planting your own time-bomb. It leads to severe problems such as system malfunctions, computer virus infections, lost of important data, and corporate sensitive data leakage. Also, SMEs have lost the valuable access to professional IT advises and productivity gains brought by new IT technologies development.

The best solution for SMEs is actually to find a professional, reliable IT management service provider. Because of the outsourcing model, the high cost of a professional IT team is shared among a number of SMEs, and thus significantly lowered the cost of IT management. SMEs can now enjoy the professional service of a high-quality IT team with the same price as 'computer helpers'.

IT management outsource is indeed a smart choice for SMEs.