Understanding the Value of a Value Added Reseller (VAR) | Technology Support | Small Businesses

Understanding the Value of a Value Added Reseller (VAR)
used with permission from the HP Site

VARs have a variety of perceptions about them. Some of these perceptions are right on. Some of them completely miss the mark. The truth is the right VAR can help most businesses more than they realize. Can the right VAR help you?

Technology is critical to run almost every business today, and in most cases, can offer both competitive and strategic value to your business. The problem is many businesses don’t think about their PCs, printers or servers as providing a competitive advantage or as strategic business tools. Even as a fundamental business tool, many think that there is little difference in the basic capabilities across the huge variety of technology devices on the market today. Having been in the industry for almost 20 years now, I can tell you that there are many differences worth noting when comparing computing products. I can also tell you that when used appropriately, there are both competitive and strategic advantages to be gained from technology.

This is where your local VAR steps in. They are experts in technology; it’s what they do. They can help you navigate the basic task of ensuring you get the right technology tools to support your business and then show you how to drive business success from that technology.

Consider these areas of expertise and guidance VARs can offer and think about how they could help your business:

Business continuity and disaster planning: What would happen to your business should a natural or man-made disaster strike? Are you truly prepared to manage through a catastrophic data loss? Many businesses are not and research shows that as high as 75% of companies without a business continuity plan fail within three years of a disaster.

Data protection and security policies: Is your business protected from hackers and in compliance with local, state and/or federal regulations? If you manage customer records, especially sensitive data like personally identifiable information, there are countless laws on how you manage that data and enormous legal and civil penalties that could cost you should that data get into the wrong hands.

Unified communications, collaboration and content management: Enhancing your business capabilities in these areas can help you to reduce costs, improve productivity and efficiency and result in better overall communications both internally and externally.

These are just a few on a long list of technology solutions which an experienced partner can help you with, including navigating your options and integrating the solutions. Let’s face it, most of us are not experts in IT – if we were that would be our business of choice. VARs are there to help you make the most of your technology and they do so in many cases with a local, personal touch.

Statistics show that the amount of information being created and shared will grow at a mind boggling rate over the next few years. For most of us that data is the core of our business. Why wouldn’t you leverage an expert to help you manage your most valuable asset? If you don’t have a technology partner you already work with, I encourage you to find one today that is a good fit for your business and see where it takes you. It might be all you need to take your business to the next level.