Using a managed IT solution through a separate provider has multiple benefits for companies that seek it out.
While it’s always tempting to try and run a fully staffed computer department in-house, the problem is that it’s extremely costly in staffing, training, and equipment. There’s also the need to establish realistic processes, get new staff up to speed, and to stay current with the latest technology and IT requirements. Here are 8 benefits to outsourcing to a managed IT solution over trying to do everything in-house.
1. Focus More Attention on the Core Business
Whether the business is new or has been around for years, it’s never a good time to take your eye off the core business and become distracted. When using IT companies in London that provide managed IT services, this rarely occurs.
Instead, through a company like Totality Services as a key IT support London based company, they can provide a host of different options to businesses. These include IT infrastructure maintenance, hardware auditing, remote IT support of Office 365 and other software, and more. It’s worthwhile taking a look at their IT Support London page to see what they can do for your business.
2. Better Efficiency
To remain competitive, it’s often necessary to stay on the cutting-edge or at least to keep up with what your peers are doing. Depending on the size of the company, this can be a tall order for some companies who feel constrained by what they’re required to invest in this area.
Instead, it can make sense to use a specialist IT company in London who are perfectly positioned to provide the services required. They can spread their IT investment in necessary resources, training, and updates to ensure their clients stay in-line or ahead of their peers, rather than steadily falling behind until the technology gap is unsustainably wide.
Using this efficiency, it’s possible to avoid overspending when attempting to handle everything in-house and hurting the bottom-line in the process.
3. Handling Scaling Up without Speed Bumps
Many companies offering managed services in IT create modular solutions that suit several different purposes. While they are still able to tailor individual solutions to each client, the modular nature of what they can provide allows for greater predictability in performance.
Using a modular approach is especially useful when their clients need to scale up quickly. This can happen with a start-up that’s growing quickly, a business that’s just launched a new product or service and is seeing a gratifying resurgence in growth rates, or just one department that has suddenly become far busier.
Either way, the need to scale up without encountering IT problems along the way connected to limited resources or poor planning is something to be avoided. Otherwise, a new launch can fall flat, or other issues can leave a company with an egg on its face.
4. Controlling IT Expenses
Companies often have a difficult time budgeting for IT expenses, especially when they’re growing and their needs are ever-changing. By contrast, with managed services, they’re able to scale up and down as required. An IT provider is also familiar with and can anticipate future requirements based on increased server, bandwidth, and employee growth too.
Discussing what will be required and the cost of the future requirements allows companies to budget more accurately in the future for their IT expenditures. This avoids making significant miscalculations which could create financial unpredictability, especially when some portion of the operating expenses are being funded through debt during a fast-growth phase.
5. Round-the-Clock Support Availability
For companies that are smaller and more local, they likely have staff who work regular office hours. To try to run an IT department that can provide support 24 hours a day is a totally different set-up to what they’re used to.
While such companies may provide services online 24/7, having staff available at all times to jump in and resolve access issues isn’t as easy. The internet has enabled businesses to provide a customer-facing website to transact business around the clock (and around the world in many cases), but that creates a headache as it does so.
By outsourcing the IT support or administration role at a minimum, it’s possible to add in 24/7 support facilities without the considerable hurdles of trying to do so in-house.
6. Consistency Across the Board
Unlike with an understaffed IT team and pulling contractors in to fix individual issues with unpredictable results, managed IT services offer greater consistency to businesses. There’s an ongoing business relationship that is handled on a daily basis. The corporate network is effectively managed and other requirements such as software access are maintained to ensure appropriate access for staff too.
Overall, companies benefit from constancy in performance, especially when it comes to information technology. There’s little room for error here given that just about every business relies on their IT to get work done, handle customers, and to be successful.
7. Compliance Is Less Problematic
Achieving and maintain compliance with an increasingly complex landscape of rules and regulation is now a major issue for companies. The smaller the business, the tougher it is to deal with. Laws like the Sarbanes-Oxley Act, and the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act (among many) must be adhered to. For newly opened or understaffed IT departments, it’s a minefield that needs a legal specialist to help establish procedures and protocols that won’t fall foul of the law.
Not only this, but this is a rapidly changing landscape too. Keeping up with privacy changes that the company must adhere to is no small matter. It’s easy to go wrong, suffer brand damage due to a fine, and be out of pocket too. By using an IT managed services provider, you can rest assured that they have already done this, and they have determined what must be done to meet all the requirements. As such, this is one less thing to worry about.
8. Improved Network Security
Better network security is a must-have for companies. It minimises the risk of a hacking attack on the company’s server. Also, it avoids real and present dangers like malware, ransomware, or other software infections on the network.
A team of security experts working for an IT services provider can keep up with the rapidly evolving nature of online threats. This literally changes daily with new viruses, malware, hacking attempts, and other risks found in the wild that need to be protected against. Indeed, it’s extremely difficult for any in-house team to do so on their own. Having people on hand who eat and breathe security and are intent on protecting clients from potential harm is the direction companies should go in to avoid being a victim of a successful cyberattack.
These are just a few of the benefits to businesses when outsourcing key IT services to a third-party. Just being able to get a high-quality of performance and support makes the idea appealing. However, advances are possible for application availability, integration, and security which further recommend taking advantage of managed IT services. Also, services can be selected based on need and as the budget allows, which is helpful too. It’s important to choose the service provider wisely, but once you’ve done that, typically it’s plain sailing from there.
