Guest Speaker 10th April 2007

  President Keith introduced Rob Salmon President & CEO of Independent Consulting Solutions a professional services company offering objective business solutions and high end technical and strategic support to local and international companies in Bermuda as well as businesses overseas. Rob has more than 21 years of technical, consulting and management experience with a diploma in Electronics Engineering from the DeVry Institute of Technology in Toronto.   

According to IT global researcher IDC, spending on IT services is expected to reach $587 billion in the year 2010 and spending on software will reach $327 billion.  IT Services, Software and Hardware will exceed $1 Trillion dollars. This makes the recovery of data from a computer hard drive or storage tape critical after a fire, flood or hurricane - the value of data can be immense and can cause major disruptions if lost.

Rob put emphasis on solutions available for disaster recovery, citing the Belco blackout as an example.  The other aspect of disaster recovery in Bermuda lately, is hurricanes. The number of severe hurricanes hitting the Island has increased dramatically over the last two years.  Forecasters are predicting even more severe storms and if you are a large company, you're going have to spend a lot of money and resources on a meaningful disaster recovery plan.

Few Businesses can compete successfully today without using technology; however, the full range of benefits and solutions remains largely untapped and underutilized especially by small to medium size businesses.  This is mainly due to the growing problem of, don't have the time or the money.   This is why outsourcing IT solutions can be cost-effective, especially for small- to medium-sized businesses.  It allows you to focus on your core business instead of spending all of your time playing with computers, when you can be working on your business.

An entire range of IT services can be delivered to businesses for a fixed monthly fee. Applications can be hosted centrally and the customer is charged a monthly fee.  This can lower costs by 20% to 60%, provides zero capital expense and setup time, eliminates staff, eliminates hardware and software upgrades and provides a guaranteed uptime.  Companies can grow or shrink as they need and Focus on their core business. 

Effective disaster recovery can be a vital lifeline for Bermuda's e-commerce, so, it's important for all companies to have one, and if you don't, then "God help you." 

 

The thanks of the club were given by Rtn Barrett Dill