Vlad Mazek has coined the phrase SPF, or Single Point of Failure, for IT consultants. These are companies that have only one person on staff and have no real backup personnel, or partners that could help run their company if they were hit by a bus.
Following on from this, the most common connection with most of these businesses is the lack of documentation, this includes:
- Network Documents
- System Changes
- Network Diagrams
- Client Information
- Business Accounts
- Business Usernames and Passwords.
Why is this information important when selling your business?
If you buy a company that does not have this information, you will have to a) have to pay for the business, b) then invest your time in learning the network and then developing your own documentation.
Part B can be an investment of a considerable amount of time, especially if it is a large network that you need to document.
This leads onto a question of if your business could survive if you "where hit by a bus". I intend to post on this topic as it seems to be an one that few small businesses could do.
Let me know your thoughts.
David
