4 Benefits Outsourced IT Support Specialists Bring To Your Business
Today’s businesses rely heavily on technology. And with the rapid evolution of the tech world, companies of all sizes are becoming increasingly reliant on outsourced IT support specialists to troubleshoot inevitable issues.
Whilst technology has many benefits, it can also have severe drawbacks. When things go wrong, a fault in your business network will bring most firms to a grinding halt.
Fortunately, disasters don’t happen that often. But they do happen. Your employees will also experience problems at some point or other as well — and they want computer issues fixed sharpish so they can meet their targets.
It’s clear that IT support of some description is a necessity.
But outsourced IT support specialists bring more to your business than fixing computers and servers. IT strategy, security and architecture are equally important for the smooth running and profitability of your company.
A Gartner survey published last year revealed that 84% of executives confirmed they missed out on innovation because they did have access to talent with relevant cloud skills.
Outsourced IT specialists have the know-how to squeeze all the benefits out of your technology. They are also on hand to help out when your in-house team is bogged down, and of course, they have specialist knowledge in frontier technologies your IT team may not have much experience with.
In this article, we discuss the benefits in four key areas that outsourced IT support specialists bring to your business.
Strap in.
Increased Security
As your business grows, your IT network should also expand accordingly. The more you grow, the more employees you need. And they need more software.
Employees and software are two of the most high-risk contributors to data breaches. This is particularly the case for companies with a distributed workforce and a Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) business model.
Cybersecurity should be on every business leader’s list of priorities. Whilst multi-national and international corporations steal the cybersecurity headlines, small businesses are the preferred target for the majority of hackers — because the networks of small firms are easier to infiltrate.
Businesses are not helped by software companies or regulatory authorities. By law, tech companies have to publicly report a potential vulnerability in their software. Whilst the warning is supposed to inform customers of a potential threat, it also informs threat actors exactly where the vulnerability is.
Thanks to the lawmakers, hackers can get to work taking advantage of software vulnerabilities without having to discover flaws by themselves.
What’s more, software companies are not held accountable if their product is successfully breached before they have the opportunity to release a security patch. Responsibility for defending business networks is placed squarely on businesses.
Outsourcing some or all of your IT security obligations means that your in-house IT team can concentrate on your core business needs rather than being distracted by time-consuming security defences.
Moreover, if your in-house IT team doesn’t have the relevant knowledge and experience in cybersecurity, it’s a job that is best left to outsourced IT specialists. Given the severity of a data breach, failing to consult specialists is not a risk worth taking.
According to Gartner, misconfigured cloud applications fail to keep out 80% of cyber attacks.
Cloud-based applications have cybersecurity tools built in. This includes access permissions and remote security monitoring which can stop attacks as they happen. The multi-layered approach gives you more stringent access control and enables you to orchestrate device management from a central location.
Software such as Microsoft 365 comes with a raft of security features that help to prevent or mitigate cyber threats and should be fully utilised in your cybersecurity strategies in 2023.
Here are five cybersecurity strategies that IT specialists recommend as a bare minimum.
It should also be understood that cloud security is a shared responsibility between the managed service provider and our clients. Cloud providers are responsible for the security of their cloud network (i.e Microsoft Azure) and end-users are responsible for the security of the broader business network.
Enhances Productivity and Efficiency
Business IT support services have evolved considerably from the days of calling out an engineer or logging a ticket to speak with a help desk attendant. Today’s IT Support teams provide strategies, advice and technologies.
For example, remote monitoring technologies catch potential problems before the error occurs. IT wizardry helps to speed up network response times and deliver a 99.999% uptime.
Automation is also a prized tool that eliminates mistakes and removes the tedious, mundane jobs your employees hate to do from human operations. Automation software is efficient and increases productivity.
Providing your staff with productivity-enhancing tools is something that managed IT services can assist you with these days. For example, Microsoft 365 facilitates communication and collaboration regardless of whether your employees are office based or working from remote areas.
Moreover, working with outsourced IT support specialists means you avoid the frustrating experience of having to contact Microsoft’s “help” desk —Microsoft customer support is notoriously bad!
Outsourced IT support specialists, on the other hand, strive to take a whole-house approach to customer support, working in collaboration with each department in your business in order to align systems, software and processes wherever possible.
Part of the support service includes suggesting applications which make your entire business more efficient, productive and profitable. We provide intuitive software that has a lean learning curve, whilst enhancing collaboration and communication.
When IT systems are compatible with your business objectives, you should see a noticeable uptick in productivity and network stability. Fast, reliable Wi-Fi also boosts staff morale. And happy employees are productive employees.
Two of the most important factors for boosting and maintaining productivity levels are system efficiency and processing speeds. Our experienced system architects and proactive IT engineers deliver high availability that is averaging 99.999% availability for client systems using proven strategies.
Successful implementation of these technologies will result in fewer interruptions to business operations and improved efficiency of staff. High availability should ideally be part of the business growth plan you have agreed with your IT support service provider.
Implement and Effective IT Strategy
Many businesses lack a solid or effective IT strategy. And without realising it, the lack of an IT strategy is hampering the performance of your network and hindering your growth.
An effective IT strategy is valuable. It lines up your IT and technology capabilities with your business objectives. As such, it maximises your return on investment. Strategic IT planning ensures a business is accountable and stays on track with its IT and wider business goals.
Managed IT support service providers help to relieve various business challenges by implementing an IT strategy that is designed to meet your business objectives.
Strategies typically include various technologies and services that help you to reach your goals, but the crux of IT services assess, review and monitor your IT infrastructure, detect issues with the system that will cause downtime and proactively prevent disruptions to your business.
An effective IT strategy is informed by data and requires an analytical approach. If your in-house IT team doesn’t have the expertise or experience in data analytics, hiring the services of an IT strategy specialist is often a requirement.
When you don’t understand the data that drives your decisions, your strategy risks being flat or ineffective. Planning and implementing an effective IT strategy – one which can explain why you need to move in a particular direction or go into detail on the resources required to deliver it – is a complex undertaking.
Data provides IT support specialists with the ability to step back and view a business objectively. These numbers help us to see where a business is, understand how it got there, assess it and decide exactly what steps a business needs to take next. Data is at the core of all effective IT strategies. But without people who can translate it and understand the implication or benefits, your strategy is lifeless.
All business data needs to be analysed so that you know exactly where your starting standpoint is. Identify the current state of the business in terms of IT and technology. Analyse the challenges currently facing the business. This is your chance to find the core challenges facing the business.
Data inform your rationale throughout the entire IT strategy, as you work to overcome them. Ensure you collate data from all areas of the business. Map out the current IT or technology landscape from as many perspectives as you can. You might invite department heads from each area of the business to talk to you about their existing IT infrastructure and outline how their team uses IT.
Stay Ahead of the Digital Curve
As firms increasingly migrate applications and data to the cloud, the outliers become more complex and time-consuming. Working with a managed IT support partner helps to improve the development of IT infrastructures, cut the workloads of your in-house IT team and stay ahead of your competitors.
The increasing pressure for businesses to digitalise their business in the last few years has highlighted that the UK has a worrying skills shortage. According to the most recent reports (at the time of writing), almost 95% of UK businesses have encountered a skills shortage in IT departments over the past year.
The fact of the matter is that IT specialists are in high demand and there are not enough IT professionals that have the relevant skills and knowledge of the latest digital technologies.
Working with outsourced IT support specialists practically covers you for every facet of an IT infrastructure. Whether you want to focus on initiatives that enhance customer experience, enhance productivity or increase sales, there are specialists out there that can help you to develop all areas of your business.
In addition, the ability to manage and monitor your network using data and code as infrastructure makes it easier to integrate third-party software that may not be compatible. Incompatible applications inevitably cause downtime and a loss of productivity.
You could, of course, invest in upskilling your existing staff in key areas of your business. In some cases, this will be the most economical solution. But hiring IT professionals in-house is not a financially viable solution for every business. And this is where managed IT support services like MicroPro can step in and help to give you a step up.
Contact Outsourced IT Specialists in London
Micro Pro has been well aware of the tech shortage for a number of years now. Subsequently, we are committed to the continuous development of our team of IT experts and provide a top-quality service that empowers businesses to overcome the skills gap challenge for a fraction of the cost involved in recruiting on-premise IT professionals.
If managed IT support services are the best option for your company, you want to be assured that you partner with the right provider. Selecting a reliable IT partner is easier if you understand what the provider’s service level agreements (SLA) include.
SLAs will help you to determine the extent of services and support you can expect to receive. We recommend focusing on the KPIs (key performance indicators) the IT company is contractually obligated to fulfil. Deliverable KPIs will help you to decide which IT support service will be your ideal partner.
With more than 20 years of experience serving companies in London and beyond, the IT specialists at Micro Pro provide a comprehensive service including leading IT solutions, consultancy, service and 24/7 support from our award-winning customer service desk.
Call us today to discuss your IT needs. Do you need ongoing services or an IT specialist for a one-off project? Micro Pro may well have the solution that enables you to overcome your next challenge.
