Most Windsor-Essex businesses never get a straight answer to a simple question: what would it cost to have our IT properly looked after? The answer depends on your setup, so the first step is looking at it.
That is what the free assessment is. It is how every managed IT plan for a 10 to 50 person business starts at Specter Systems, and it is useful even if you never sign up for anything.
What it is
A 30-minute walkthrough of your setup with the person who would actually be doing the work. The goal is to understand three things: what you have, what is risky, and what can be improved.
What gets looked at
- How many people and computers you have, and how old the computers are.
- Whether there is a server, a shared drive or a NAS, and what lives on it.
- Your Microsoft 365 (or Google Workspace) setup: who has an account, which licences you pay for, and whether multi-factor sign-in is on.
- Backups: what is backed up, where it goes, and when anyone last tested a restore.
- The network: the internet connection, router or firewall, Wi-Fi, and whether guests share the staff network.
- Security basics: antivirus or endpoint protection, Windows updates, and who has admin rights.
- How IT gets handled today, and what keeps going wrong.
Nothing gets installed and nothing gets changed. It is a look, not a sales visit with a toolkit.
What to have ready
You do not need documentation. These four answers cover most of it:
- A rough count of staff and computers.
- Who your internet provider is.
- Who manages Microsoft 365 today, even if the answer is "nobody".
- The last two or three IT problems that cost you time.
What you get afterwards
A written proposal within a week. It says which plan fits (Essentials, Managed, or Managed + Security), the per-user monthly price, what is included and what is extra. Hardware, software licences such as Microsoft 365, and big projects like a server replacement are quoted separately, so nothing shows up later as a surprise.
Sometimes the answer is “you don't need a plan.” With only a few computers and no server, hourly support usually costs less, and the proposal will say so. For the longer version, read managed IT vs. break-fix.
If you go ahead
Onboarding is scheduled around your current provider, so there is no gap in coverage. Monitoring and security tools go on every computer, Microsoft 365 and backups get checked and set up properly, and your staff get the support number and portal. Support runs 9 AM to 9 PM, 7 days a week. On the Managed + Security plan, a security operations centre also watches every machine 24/7; here is what that actually means.
Book the 30 minutes
Free, no obligation, and you keep the findings either way.