Do you find yourself spending more time than necessary trying to manage the tech needs of your business? That’s not surprising. Businesses today need tech more than ever.
Unfortunately, it isn’t easy to set up a reliable IT infrastructure. That’s why businesses are turning to managed services providers to get the job done. That trend has led to the managed IT market growing to a value of $215.14 billion in 2020.
If you’re looking to improve your company’s IT infrastructure, working with a managed IT provider is a great way to do so. Below are the many benefits you’ll see when partnering with a managed IT service.
Spend Less on Tech
It takes a lot of money to build a great IT team. You can’t rely on one employee to handle everything. You need people with various IT skills to handle all the work you need to be done.
Even a single employee can eat up a lot of your IT budget if you’re a small business. You’re going to hope that you get a well-rounded individual that can handle most of what you need. Unfortunately, they likely won’t be an expert at everything.
You can spend less money and get all the talent you need by working with a managed IT company. You only need to pay their monthly fee to get IT support. If you need to change your service level, you can talk to your support representative to scale your costs as much as you need.
Secure Your Business from Online Threats
With how many businesses are taking their company’s online, hackers are starting to become more active than ever. Every day there are new threats that cause problems for businesses. The question is, have you done the work to protect your company from those threats?
Unfortunately, it’s easy to make one small mistake when setting up your cybersecurity defense. That’s all it takes for a hacker to gain access to your sensitive company files. That means you can’t afford to take half measures with your internet security.
You can find cybersecurity specialists at IT firms or you can also find them at sapphire.net. They’ll help you find problems with your company’s network and develop a strategy to make sure hackers have no way to break into your company network.
Get Help With Compliance Requirements
Even if you do a great job securing your network against hackers, it might not always be enough. Specific industries are held to a higher standard. If you deal with highly sensitive information like social security and credit card numbers, it makes sense.
That’s why governments are beginning to legislate data security. If you work in an industry that handles this type of information, there’s a level of protection that you’re required to meet.
The problem is that these compliance laws are complex, and setting up your IT infrastructure to meet them is complicated. Working with an IT provider that’s dealt with your industry before is a great way to get the help you need.
Gain Staff Flexibility
Even the most predictable businesses in the world can experience times of uncertainty. Whether it’s bad economic times or a sudden surge in business, you never know when your business needs will suddenly change.
That’s a problem if you need to scale your IT team with your demands. If your demands rise, then you need new employees to handle the additional support requests. If your market demand dies down, you’re stuck with employees that have nothing to do.
You can avoid staffing headaches by working with an IT solutions business. All you need to do is tell them how many IT support members you need. You can scale your service level up and down as often as your IT needs change.
Get Vendor Support
Even a small IT infrastructure uses a lot of hardware and software these days. In most cases, you’ll go about your day without anything going wrong. The question is, do you know who to call or what questions to ask when part of your tech stack breaks?
If your IT infrastructure is complicated, it might be hard to know who to reach out to if you want to get your problem fixed. Connected systems are more complex to troubleshoot since you might not know what is causing the issue.
Managed IT companies have vendor relationships with the biggest names in the industry. They can figure out the root cause of a problem and reach out to the person who can fix it. You won’t need to spend hours on the phone with your IT vendors again.
Improve Employee Productivity
There are a lot of tech tools out there now that can help your business get more productive. Whether it’s collaboration tools or software that helps you work faster, you can find software for every task you can imagine.
The problem is integrating it with your current workflow. Most tools have their own pros and cons, and you might not know which ones will work best for your company.
That’s where an IT company can help. They’re up to date on the latest tools of the trade. They’ll help you pick the right software and train your team to take full advantage of their new tools.
You also have the option of getting custom tools built for your business. If you have a business process that doesn’t fit inside a pre-built program, you can use a software developer to automate as much of that process as you can. You’ll see your team get more done in less time.
Help Your Employees Go Remote
The work landscape has changed a lot over the past several years. It’s gone from everyone going to the office for the whole day to people spending much of their work-life at home. As time goes on, people will continue wanting to work remotely.
That makes setting up an IT infrastructure more challenging. How can you ensure your remote workers have everything they need to get their tasks done?
An IT provider can help you set up a remote work infrastructure. They’ll help you move your data and software to the cloud for everyone to access and make sure your cloud programs keep your data secure.
Get Specialized Talent
There isn’t an IT employee who will be able to handle any job you throw at them. They might be able to hack together solutions to get something working. However, they may not find the best product or solution unless they have specialized knowledge in a specific IT field.
That’s why you need to work with specialists to handle unique IT tasks. Whether it’s database management, software developers, machine learning, or cybersecurity specialists, there are IT experts who do nothing but those tasks.
Working with a managed IT company gives you access to that talent. They employ experts like Chad Becker who have been in the IT field for a long time. Their expertise will help you tackle any IT challenge your company faces.
Protect Your Important Files
It’s hard to run a business these days without great data. Market data is easy to get, so even small companies can make better business decisions.
While this makes it easier for business owners to make winning decisions, it becomes a problem when you don’t have access to your data. If something ever happened that caused you to lose your files, you’ll be making decisions blind.
That’s why you need a backup solution to backup your important files. Once your files are backed up, you can restore any lost data with a few clicks of a button.
Your IT provider can help you set up a backup system to safeguard your data.
Monitor Potential Issues
While you can get by dealing with computer issues as they arise, doing things that way will eventually cause problems. You’ll see downtime for your employees and lost productivity.
Luckily, there are monitoring tools out there that can give you a heads up about potential issues. These software packages will scan your computer hardware and notify your IT support when something doesn’t look right.
These notifications will allow your IT team to get in front of problems before they become bigger. In many cases, you’ll be able to go about your day and have your issues resolved before you know they’re there.
All of this leads to better uptime for your business. Every second your IT systems are down costs you money.
Start Talking With a Managed IT Provider Today
You have a lot of options when looking for a managed IT provider. However, not every company out there can provide your business the service it needs. Start talking with managed service providers today to figure out which one can help your business succeed.
If you’re looking for more business tech tips, check out the blog for other great advice.