IT services, how do you guys handle this for your business?

I normally use Elance as there are some good people on there that do work for reasonable prices as I use zencart ... I used to do it myself but my website has got so much stuff on now days I would rather get someone to do it for me ... I used to use fiverr in the beginning but they broke more than they fixed

Yep, good lesson in life there, you get what you pay for. Steer clear of cheap Indian or East European based resource as it normally ends up costing more in the end!

I guess it depends on the definition of "IT". Most small or micro businesses need nothing more than a laptop, printer, simple accounts software, maybe Microsoft Office and an email service like Gmail. Any website will be managed by their hosting provider.

If the laptop breaks they take it back to the shop. As a business scales, then obviously you need to think and consider some kind of budget, so I'd be surprised to hear most small/medium have zero budget.

With most services now available very cheaply in the "cloud", what sort of IT services in particular are you referring to? Office hardware or software services?

There are good freelancers out there that will do a great job for you, also the half baked software engineers, designers, .....etc that will google youtube to see how to so they can make some money. Building a software or application is one thing supporting and giving a good customer service is another and that is where a good company/organisation stand above the rests.

Small companies that I know usually calls to freelances to solve their IT problems. Another possibility it to contract maintenance with any IT company, monthly paid.

But when the budget is very low they fix it by themselves.

I suppose the issue here is consistency and quality of support. Plus leading on from a thread I commented on a minute ago about 40% of users suffering from cyber crime, having lots of different low cost freelancers accessing your website and data has to be a security concern?

Maybe that should be the primary call to action, professional and secure support versus a cheap freelancer of unknown origin and background? Makes you really think when asked to put your details into a new website. Who supports it, and is it safe?