Most IT problems do not begin with a dramatic outage.

They begin quietly.

A backup has not been tested for months.

An ex-employee still has access to Microsoft 365.

A laptop is running unsupported software.

Multi-factor authentication protects some accounts but not others.

Nobody is quite sure what would happen if the main internet connection failed tomorrow.

Everything may appear to be working.

That does not necessarily mean everything is well managed.

Hamilton Group’s free 45-minute IT Health Check gives businesses an opportunity to step away from day-to-day support issues and ask a more useful question:

Where are our biggest IT risks, weaknesses and opportunities right now?

There is no obligation to change IT provider or buy anything afterwards.

The purpose is to give you a clearer picture of your current position and identify the areas that deserve attention first.

What Is the 45-Minute IT Health Check?

It is a focused conversation about the technology your business depends on.

We look at the way your organisation currently handles areas such as:

• IT support
• Microsoft 365
• cyber security
• backups and recovery
• employee devices
• networks and connectivity
• user access
• business continuity
• future IT planning

This is deliberately not marketed as a full security audit or penetration test.

Forty-five minutes is not enough to perform a forensic review of your infrastructure.

What it is enough for is identifying warning signs, asking the right questions and establishing where a deeper investigation may be justified.

What Will You Actually Get From It?

By the end of the conversation, you should have a clearer understanding of:

• the areas of your IT that appear well managed
• your most important potential weaknesses
• questions you should be asking your current IT provider
• where security could be strengthened
• whether backup and recovery arrangements deserve closer scrutiny
• whether recurring IT problems suggest a deeper underlying issue
• where future IT spending should be prioritised

The goal is not to produce a frightening list of technical jargon.

It is to help you decide:

What should we actually do next?

Why Would a Business Need an IT Health Check?

Because successful IT is surprisingly good at hiding problems.

Employees can still send email even though an old administrator account remains active.

OneDrive can still synchronise even though sensitive SharePoint permissions are too broad.

A backup application can display green ticks even though nobody has tested whether a complete restore works.

A firewall can continue operating long after its configuration was last reviewed.

The absence of an outage does not prove the absence of risk.

A short structured review can often uncover questions that have simply never been asked.

1. Is Your IT Support Helping—or Just Reacting?

One of the first areas worth discussing is how support actually works for your employees.

Ask:

When someone has a problem, what happens next?

Useful questions include:

• How quickly are requests acknowledged?
• Do recurring problems keep returning?
• Is somebody responsible for finding root causes?
• Is there monitoring in place?
• What happens outside normal working hours?
• Who handles supplier escalations?

Hamilton Group aims to make first contact on IT support requests within 15 minutes, but response speed should not be the only measure.

Good IT support should also be working to reduce how often employees need support in the first place.

2. Is Microsoft 365 Actually Secure?

Microsoft 365 can appear to work perfectly while still containing unnecessary security risk.

During the Health Check, we may discuss:

• MFA coverage
• administrator accounts
• Microsoft Defender
• Conditional Access
• SharePoint permissions
• OneDrive sharing
• Teams access
• former employees
• Microsoft 365 licensing

A useful question is:

Could somebody access more information than they genuinely need?

That question becomes increasingly important as businesses adopt:

• remote working
• cloud collaboration
• Microsoft Copilot
• external sharing

Microsoft 365 should be actively managed, not simply renewed each year.

3. Could You Actually Recover From a Backup?

Many organisations have backups.

Fewer can confidently answer:

When was the last successful restore test?

A sensible discussion around backup should cover:

• what is backed up
• how often
• how long copies are retained
• whether one copy is off-site
• whether ransomware can reach the backup
• whether Microsoft 365 data is protected appropriately
• how long recovery would actually take

The question is not:

“Is the backup software running?”

It is:

“Could the business recover if we lost the production systems tomorrow?”

4. Are Former Employees and Old Accounts Still Hanging Around?

Joiner and leaver processes are easy to neglect.

When an employee leaves, somebody needs to consider:

• Microsoft 365 account
• active sessions
• VPN access
• shared systems
• admin rights
• licences
• company devices
• data ownership

Old accounts and unnecessary privileges create risk without providing any business value.

The Health Check can help establish whether user access is being reviewed systematically or managed mainly when somebody remembers.

5. Are Your Devices Properly Managed?

A business may have dozens of laptops that all look broadly similar while being configured very differently underneath.

For example:

• one has BitLocker enabled
• another does not
• one is fully patched
• another is months behind
• one has current endpoint security
• another has stopped reporting

We may discuss:

• Windows and macOS management
• patching
• encryption
• endpoint security
• hardware age
• software support
• device replacement planning

The objective is consistency.

You should be able to answer:

What does a correctly configured company device look like?

6. Is Cyber Security More Than Antivirus?

Cyber security is not one product.

Depending on the organisation, sensible controls may include:

• MFA
• endpoint detection and response
• email protection
• patch management
• vulnerability management
• security awareness training
• firewall controls
• secure administrator accounts
• incident response planning
• Cyber Essentials

The Health Check is useful because it gives you an opportunity to look at these controls as a system, rather than a collection of products purchased at different times.

7. What Would Happen if Something Important Failed Tomorrow?

Ask yourself:

What happens if the internet connection fails?

What if:

• the server fails
• ransomware encrypts the network
• Microsoft 365 is unavailable
• the office cannot be accessed
• a critical laptop is stolen
• the main supplier has an outage

You do not necessarily need a 100-page business continuity document.

But key people should know:

• what systems matter most
• what the alternatives are
• who makes decisions
• how employees communicate

A Health Check can quickly reveal whether those arrangements exist at all.

8. Are You Paying for Technology You Do Not Need?

Security and resilience are only part of the picture.

IT can also quietly accumulate cost.

You may have:

• unused Microsoft 365 licences
• overlapping security tools
• ageing equipment costing too much to support
• cloud services nobody uses
• old subscriptions that were never cancelled

The objective is not always to spend more.

Sometimes the best recommendation is:

stop paying for something.

9. Does Your Current IT Match Where the Business Is Going?

Your technology may work perfectly for the business you had three years ago.

That does not mean it is right for the business you are building now.

The Health Check may include discussion around:

• recruitment
• additional offices
• remote working
• mergers and acquisitions
• new applications
• AI adoption
• cloud migration
• cyber insurance
• regulatory requirements

IT planning is much easier before the business hits a constraint.

Who Is the Free IT Health Check For?

It can be useful if:

• you are unhappy with your current IT support
• recurring problems keep coming back
• nobody has reviewed Microsoft 365 recently
• you are concerned about ransomware
• you are preparing for Cyber Essentials
• you are reviewing cyber insurance
• your business is growing
• you are unsure whether backups are reliable
• your technology costs seem to keep increasing
• your business has not had an independent IT review for several years

You do not need to be looking for a new IT provider.

You may simply want another perspective.

Already Have an IT Provider? That’s Fine

You do not need to cancel an existing relationship before speaking to Hamilton Group.

The session may simply give you useful questions to take back to your current provider.

For example:

When did we last test a complete restore?

Are all administrator accounts protected by strong MFA?

How many devices are outside our normal security baseline?

Who monitors our backups and security alerts?

What is our recovery time if the office becomes unavailable?

A good incumbent IT provider should be comfortable answering those questions.

What the Free Health Check Is NOT

To keep expectations realistic, the 45-minute session is not:

• a penetration test
• a vulnerability scan
• a full Microsoft 365 configuration audit
• a detailed firewall review
• a formal compliance assessment
• a comprehensive written risk report

Those require technical access and more time.

If the conversation identifies an area that deserves deeper investigation, we can explain what a proper assessment would involve.

That is much more useful than pretending a short consultation can certify that everything is secure.

Five Questions Worth Asking Right Now

Even before the Health Check, ask yourself:

1. When did we last prove our backups could actually restore the business?
2. Does every important account have appropriate MFA?
3. Could we identify every device accessing company information?
4. Would former employees definitely be unable to access our systems?
5. If our IT stopped working tomorrow morning, do we know what happens next?

If any answer is:

“I'm not sure”

that is exactly the sort of issue worth discussing.

Why Is Hamilton Group Offering It for Free?

Because many businesses know something about their IT could be improved but do not know where to start.

Forty-five minutes is enough time to establish:

• what worries you
• what you rely on
• where obvious gaps may exist
• what deserves deeper investigation

Sometimes the outcome may be:

Your current arrangements look broadly sensible.

That is still useful.

Sometimes it may uncover something that should be addressed quickly.

Either way, you leave with more clarity than you started with.

Book Your Free 45-Minute IT Health Check

You do not need to wait for:

• ransomware
• a failed backup
• an employee account compromise
• a major outage
• a lost laptop

before asking whether your IT is properly prepared.

A free 45-minute IT Health Check with Hamilton Group can help you identify your priorities and understand where further attention may be worthwhile.

There is:

no obligation to change provider

and:

no obligation to purchase anything afterwards.

Bring your questions.

Bring the problems that keep returning.

Bring the areas you are not sure about.

We will help you work out what deserves attention first.

Call 0330 043 0069 or visit hgmssp.com to book your free 45-minute IT Health Check.