Here are some off the cuff things that any new or small "professional services firm" (aka consulting firm) will need to consider:
- Things common to small businesses -
- How big is the company
- What can you afford
- What are the needs
- Are the needs generic like msft office or specific like detailed timekeeping or graphics
- How will you communicate with clients -
- Email obviously, but will you ever need to do blog posts for them?
- How about microcommunication services like Yammer?
- What security level do you need
- Federal, state, and local government all have their own specific security requirements as customers
- Are you under HIPAA requirements? In many respects this is less stringent than having a Federal government client, but has its own peculiarities and challenges
- Do your IT needs create any special office space / facility needs? Federal government and HIPAA certainly will
- Billing needs
- Will your clients require you to submit billing invoices to them in any specific way?
- Do you need to track billing on a per minute basis? Per hour?
- Do you need to track specific billable actions like writing a memo or email, making a phone call?
- Who will you be billing, and are there any industry-mandated
- Location of staff
- Colocated?
- Across the world?
- A mix of the above where some are together, some are in another country, and you have part-time people elsewhere?
- How about special subcontractors?
- Do you need IT to be controlled on your servers
- How will you want to collaborate internally
- See above on "Location of staff", but even if you are all within earshot you may prefer to have collaboration supercharged via
- From lucky_dog
- by Philo Nordlund
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