Should I outsource my business’ IT support?

The most costly issues of in-housing IT commonly arise due to inflexible solutions, where IT investments and skills quickly become outdated and need updating and retraining. Smaller businesses typically have a basic local infrastructure which doesn’t require enough maintenance to warrant a full-time post and in these situations, the cost of in-housing IT support often exceeds product output.

With outsourced IT Support, less capital investment is required and no time or money is wasted on recruitment fees or additional training for current staff. It can help them to level the playing field with larger competitors as they gain access to expert advice and skills whilst keeping within budgets.

Furthermore, you often get better rates on high-end technology such as hardware upgrades and cyber security as well as the expertise to help optimise your current technologies. Rather than unnecessarily investing in new costly upgrades, your TSP will ensure you only ever pay for what you need. With outsourced IT support, you are free to dictate the expectations and extent of the service they provide and economise on these accordingly.

Running and growing a business comes with enough daily tasks and challenges without having to address issues with IT. The task of your technology is to make your life easier and help make your business run more efficiently, yet due to the complexity of the continuously changing IT world, it can actually have the opposite effect and slow down growth.

Outsourcing your IT department can help you to focus on your business by taking the burden of technology off your shoulders and placing it into the hands of experts. You no longer need to go on time-consuming, stressful and expensive recruitment searches to find employees in a specialist field.

This allows you and your employees to focus on big-picture outcomes and benefit from your business IT rather than managing it knowing your MSP will keep their finger on the technology pulse for you. Furthermore, you will be able to consult with your MSP to discuss your wider business strategy and goals and exploit technology to your particular needs.

Protecting your business’s security from ever-changing malware, hackers and viruses etc, is a huge part of the role of IT support. If your in-house IT department isn’t large or skilled enough to take on these threats, then big mistakes could be made which could be financially and reputationally detrimental to your business.

By outsourcing your IT support, your business will have constant protection from experts who will be continuously updating their knowledge on the current cyber threats and ensure your business is as safe as possible.

Moreover, your TSP can give you easy access to premier cyber security which can then be monitored and updated by your outsourced IT team.

All employees, including in-house IT staff, require time off work, whether it be due to illness or holiday, and this can be hugely disruptive to a business, particularly those with an IT department made up of one or two people.

By switching to an outsourced IT support team, this problem can be completely negated. You will have the help of experts with the latest qualifications and most updated technical knowledge on call to resolve any technical issues that may arise as well as following through with projects to completion without time delays due to staff shortages.

As you expand your business, an internal IT department will often struggle to fill the gaps in more advanced IT skills and will struggle to keep up with the growing demands. For example, if you realise you need to perform a cloud migration unless you have a cloud specialist in your IT staff team, you will have to spend precious time and resources finding an expert to fulfil this job if you want the project to be successful.

By outsourcing your IT services to a TSP, you will have instant access to a comprehensive range of IT skills when you need them, which in turn, can help scale your business as it expands. A TSP can bring a wide range of expertise to your organisation, from managing a help desk to providing IT input into business growth planning as part of vCIO services, making sure tools and infrastructure are appropriate for the goals your business is trying to achieve.

Furthermore, your TSP can deliver technology adoption training to you and your employees as part of your IT service package, helping you realise the full potential of your technologies across your business.