“I work for a farmer who also happens to be a CEO. “
That’s what I often say when people ask me about the owner of the company I work for. Sound crazy to you? It makes perfect sense to me. Bill Taylor farms with his dad and brother in North Central Indiana and also owns Taylored Systems, a successful technology communications company.
The way I see it, farmers, by nature, have unbelievable persistence. They stay committed to their objective…I will raise a crop, I will sell it, and I will make sure there a little something left over as a result of my hard work. Successful farmers keep moving forward. They avoid the mindset to “park the tractor” when things look bad, because that would not help them with a successful harvest.
The same is true for us in business. Everywhere you turn, conversation seems to involve a discussion about our current economic state. It is no different in our world, but we are intentionally making a choice that will help our employees, our business, and our economy.
We just held our annual all employee meeting where we reviewed 2008, and it was a good year. (Not a GREAT year, but a good year). And as a result of that year, all employees were able to receive a small bonus for their continued effort, hard work, and commitment to the company. We are in the process of hiring new employees and as a result will need to purchase a new fleet vehicle. Instead of one, we decided to purchase two vehicles, to help replace one of our older ones.
Last week our President signed a new stimulus package and we hoped it would mean good things for the economy. The same day, the market dropped 300 points and commodities tanked. By all historical economic indicators, it may be a little while until we pull out of the “economic situation”, but we have to keep moving forward. We have to remain positive, and we have to keep those tractors moving.
We will do our part to buy goods and services that will help us achieve our goals and refuse to let the nervousness around us stop us from making sound business decisions that will help us in our 3, 5, and 10 year business plan. You have a choice to make too. Are you going to complain about the situation and “park your tractor” or are you going to keep industry alive; keep buying, shopping, hiring, and persistently pursuing your objectives? We hope you’ll join us.
This was Amy Hershman’s latest conversation with Bill Taylor.
Thank you and kind regards.
Friday, February 20, 2009
Tuesday, February 10, 2009
What Is Your Next Move?
A disaster rips through your town, power is out, businesses are closed, families are shaken, homes are destroyed, and a sense of worry is all around. This happens all the time all over the United States. Recently the floods in Iowa, tornados in Indiana, hurricanes on the coasts, and fires in California have made people think; if that is happening there it could easily happen here. Worrying about your own family’s safety is one thing, but if you are a business owner or manager you have the families of your employees on your mind as well.
When Bill Taylor took a trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa last summer to visit a partner company, he saw that worry first hand when the company he was visiting had to evacuate their location due to rising waters. He began thinking in his mind. It was the same thought process many business owners face…what would I do if that happened where I operate my business?????????
When Bill asked himself if his current disaster plan was going to ensure the 40 people he employs would be able to continue to work and provide for their families even in the event of a disaster, the answer was not as clear as he would have liked.
At that time Taylored Systems was doing back ups on discs and tapes; and then physically moving these items to off site locations. So he began to think through scenarios to determine if his plans were where they needed to be.
Scenario 1:
The building we operate in is fine, but a server has crashed. How do I fix it? Where do I get parts quickly? How long will I be down?
Scenario 2:
Our building is damaged, computers and servers are operational, but the company needs to move to a secondary location. How long will it take to move all the equipment? What can we leave behind and still be operational?
Scenario 3:
Our building is damaged or demolished; computers and servers are destroyed or not operational. What the @$*% do I do???
Bill then asked himself two questions…what can I add to increase flexibility into my disaster recovery plans? And whatever I find that works, will I be comfortable telling this story and suggesting it to friends, customers, etc????
When looking at those two questions coupled with the 3 scenarios one product was found that answered everything. Back-up Disaster Recovery (BDR), is a device that resides in our computer room that backs up our drives on the servers in 15 minute increments. Each evening it compiles a composite of changes made and sends that back up to two offsite locations, virtually. The BDR does not only make the back-ups and storage of those back-ups easier and more manageable it also allows for recalling that data in a much easier fashion.
For instance, a few days ago our accounting department was working on an important Excel file. Throughout the morning one person had made multiple changes to the spreadsheet. In the afternoon, after the file had been shared through the department it was noticed that there had been a formula error at some point and the spreadsheet was now useless. Bothered with the idea of having to recreate this file and spend days redoing work that had already been done they thought there has to be a different way. With the implementation of our BDR there was another way. Within minutes we were able to go back to the time period of when the file was known to be correct, pinpoint the most recent correct version of file, restore the file allowing the accounting department to continue on their work at hand rather than recreating the important document. This saved us countless hours of extra work, which we all know SAVING TIME means SAVING MONEY.
Back-up Disaster Recovery can also work as a virtual server, and this is how Bill saw the BDR as a way to accomplish all of his scenarios.
Scenario 1:
The building we operate in is fine, but a server has crashed. How do I fix it? Where do I get parts quickly? How long will I be down?
Answer:
BDR becomes the virtual server. It takes the back-ups that it knows and operates just as your server would based on the information it has. While you are working to fix the issue that has caused the server to fail, instead of hours or days of downtime, the BDR takes over and allows you to effectively and in a timely manner operate your business.
This moves us out of break/fix mode to a truly managed service where the customer does not call us to say they have a down server, we will call you to let you know the problem has been monitored and the procedure is in place or has been completed to switch over to the BDR until the issue is resolved.
Scenario 2:
Building is damaged, computers and servers are operational, but the company needs to move to a secondary location. How long will it take to move all the equipment? What can we leave behind and still be operational?
Answer:
Rather than moving your entire IT room to begin functioning in your new location you can move the BDR, put it in virtual mode. Your latest back-up will be your benchmark and as long as there is an internet connection the BDR can continue to backup and send the data to the offsite locations for safe storage. Since it is only backing up changes and not rewriting the whole back up it allows for this to be done on a DSL or a slower form of broadband.
Scenario 3:
Building is damaged or demolished; computers and servers are destroyed or not operational. What the @$*% do I do???
Answer:
You need to spend your time and resources taking care of your other pressing issues. Your data will be safe. Within 24 hours of contacting us, a new BDR with the base image and incremental back-ups from the last back up will be shipped to your new location to be used as a virtual server. When your replacement server is received and ready to be used the BDR allows for a much more time efficient way providing the necessary data to build the server and get your company in full operation.
So what is your plan today?? Have you even thought about it? What will you do in the event of any of these scenarios or disasters that affect others on a daily basis? Do you want to be the one saying “I wish I had done that before this happened,” I do not know why you would.
When faced with the question why put money into something that may or may not be needed, ask yourself these questions as well.
Can I put a price on regret?
What is all my data worth to my business?
How long can I be out of business?
Even though my insurance covers my equipment, how much lost revenue can I deal with while I wait on the insurance company to clear my claim?
How much time am I willing to spend after the claim rebuilding what I had?
Think about the families you are responsible for, do you want to explain to an employee’s child why their parent has not worked and what you could have done to avoid that???????
This is Michael Martin's latest conversation with Bill Taylor.
When Bill Taylor took a trip to Cedar Rapids, Iowa last summer to visit a partner company, he saw that worry first hand when the company he was visiting had to evacuate their location due to rising waters. He began thinking in his mind. It was the same thought process many business owners face…what would I do if that happened where I operate my business?????????
When Bill asked himself if his current disaster plan was going to ensure the 40 people he employs would be able to continue to work and provide for their families even in the event of a disaster, the answer was not as clear as he would have liked.
At that time Taylored Systems was doing back ups on discs and tapes; and then physically moving these items to off site locations. So he began to think through scenarios to determine if his plans were where they needed to be.
Scenario 1:
The building we operate in is fine, but a server has crashed. How do I fix it? Where do I get parts quickly? How long will I be down?
Scenario 2:
Our building is damaged, computers and servers are operational, but the company needs to move to a secondary location. How long will it take to move all the equipment? What can we leave behind and still be operational?
Scenario 3:
Our building is damaged or demolished; computers and servers are destroyed or not operational. What the @$*% do I do???
Bill then asked himself two questions…what can I add to increase flexibility into my disaster recovery plans? And whatever I find that works, will I be comfortable telling this story and suggesting it to friends, customers, etc????
When looking at those two questions coupled with the 3 scenarios one product was found that answered everything. Back-up Disaster Recovery (BDR), is a device that resides in our computer room that backs up our drives on the servers in 15 minute increments. Each evening it compiles a composite of changes made and sends that back up to two offsite locations, virtually. The BDR does not only make the back-ups and storage of those back-ups easier and more manageable it also allows for recalling that data in a much easier fashion.
For instance, a few days ago our accounting department was working on an important Excel file. Throughout the morning one person had made multiple changes to the spreadsheet. In the afternoon, after the file had been shared through the department it was noticed that there had been a formula error at some point and the spreadsheet was now useless. Bothered with the idea of having to recreate this file and spend days redoing work that had already been done they thought there has to be a different way. With the implementation of our BDR there was another way. Within minutes we were able to go back to the time period of when the file was known to be correct, pinpoint the most recent correct version of file, restore the file allowing the accounting department to continue on their work at hand rather than recreating the important document. This saved us countless hours of extra work, which we all know SAVING TIME means SAVING MONEY.
Back-up Disaster Recovery can also work as a virtual server, and this is how Bill saw the BDR as a way to accomplish all of his scenarios.
Scenario 1:
The building we operate in is fine, but a server has crashed. How do I fix it? Where do I get parts quickly? How long will I be down?
Answer:
BDR becomes the virtual server. It takes the back-ups that it knows and operates just as your server would based on the information it has. While you are working to fix the issue that has caused the server to fail, instead of hours or days of downtime, the BDR takes over and allows you to effectively and in a timely manner operate your business.
This moves us out of break/fix mode to a truly managed service where the customer does not call us to say they have a down server, we will call you to let you know the problem has been monitored and the procedure is in place or has been completed to switch over to the BDR until the issue is resolved.
Scenario 2:
Building is damaged, computers and servers are operational, but the company needs to move to a secondary location. How long will it take to move all the equipment? What can we leave behind and still be operational?
Answer:
Rather than moving your entire IT room to begin functioning in your new location you can move the BDR, put it in virtual mode. Your latest back-up will be your benchmark and as long as there is an internet connection the BDR can continue to backup and send the data to the offsite locations for safe storage. Since it is only backing up changes and not rewriting the whole back up it allows for this to be done on a DSL or a slower form of broadband.
Scenario 3:
Building is damaged or demolished; computers and servers are destroyed or not operational. What the @$*% do I do???
Answer:
You need to spend your time and resources taking care of your other pressing issues. Your data will be safe. Within 24 hours of contacting us, a new BDR with the base image and incremental back-ups from the last back up will be shipped to your new location to be used as a virtual server. When your replacement server is received and ready to be used the BDR allows for a much more time efficient way providing the necessary data to build the server and get your company in full operation.
So what is your plan today?? Have you even thought about it? What will you do in the event of any of these scenarios or disasters that affect others on a daily basis? Do you want to be the one saying “I wish I had done that before this happened,” I do not know why you would.
When faced with the question why put money into something that may or may not be needed, ask yourself these questions as well.
Can I put a price on regret?
What is all my data worth to my business?
How long can I be out of business?
Even though my insurance covers my equipment, how much lost revenue can I deal with while I wait on the insurance company to clear my claim?
How much time am I willing to spend after the claim rebuilding what I had?
Think about the families you are responsible for, do you want to explain to an employee’s child why their parent has not worked and what you could have done to avoid that???????
This is Michael Martin's latest conversation with Bill Taylor.
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