An in-house IT Department costs a lot of money to run on a daily basis. Hardware upgrades, IT maintenance and ongoing staff training also continually add to this cost. Many organisations are now choosing an Outsourced IT Services for cost efficiency reasons, access to specialist knowledge and enhanced IT Security benefits.
What are the benefits of Outsourcing IT Support?
Whilst in-house IT Departments are still favoured by many SMEs, especially those with a more traditional setup or for larger companies where IT is second nature, however the majority of organisations are now outsourcing their IT Support to specialist IT companies. Outsourced IT Support enables organisations to pull on the expertise of industry professionals and ensures their organisation can run as efficiently as possible, with cutting edge expertise and no expensive overheads.
As with everything, internal IT management certainly has its advantages especially for larger companies, however there are several disadvantages too that we will explore in these thought-provoking questions below.
1: How can you ensure your staff have the latest knowledge on cyber security compliance?
Enhanced security & compliance
We often find that organisations with smaller IT Teams are somewhat behind when it comes to the latest developments in Cyber Security. Your current in-house IT Support provisions can be limited by the knowledge and experience of your team, much of which has been acquired working with your systems. If you choose to deploy new technologies in-house, such as Digital Transformation, technical issues may take longer to resolve as engineers are still learning.
As a result of this, company security can sometimes be put at risk and become exposed to Malware threats and data breaches.
One of the major benefits of Outsourcing IT Support to a reputable IT Support company, is that you can ensure your organisation remains protected from major IT Security threats 24/7. More importantly, we can also ensure your company adheres to IT Security Compliance regulations such as GDPR. Another benefit of an outsourced IT department is that you gain access to additional experts. These invaluable resources can be used resolve issues faster. An IT outsourcer can also call upon the skills and experience they’ve gained from working with other clients.
2: What happens to your companies IT when team members go on holiday or are off sick?
The ability to upscale at short notice
We understand that outsourcing your entire companies IT can be very daunting for some Directors due to the perceived loss of control. This is why we also work alongside many larger IT teams as a bolt-on addition to their existing team. Perhaps there is a complex system upgrade in progress where our expertise is needed on the successful implementation and roll out, or you need some reliable ad-hoc IT Support for other things whilst the skeleton team are in place.
3: How do you ensure your staff have enough current industry knowledge and expertise to take your company IT to the next level?
Staff capability and expertise
As organisations of all sizes move towards new technologies such as Digital Transformation to innovate their businesses, many find themselves at the edge of a competitive advantage. However, the skills that are used deploy and use these new technologies are rare and can be costly.
Companies who send their staff on regular IT courses won’t experience this, however those that don’t invest are often those with IT teams where we notice that staff industry knowledge is a little rusty. As Microsoft Gold partners and IT Security experts, all our IT Engineers undertake regular training with our industry leading partners which we continually pass on to our clients.
Rather than put these plans on hold due to lack of resource funding, businesses can now choose to outsource their underlying IT Infrastructure, and the human resources required to use it. There will still be an increased cost to this operating model, but wages, National Insurance contributions and benefits packages become the responsibility of the Managed Service Provider.
4: How do you ensure your organisation’s IT setup is as up to date as possible?
Proactive maintenance
Time and time again we see system maintenance is undertaken as a result of a problem that occurred, not necessarily as a preventative. As part of our Managed IT Services we proactively check for updates to avoid potential threats/glitches and make these out of hours to avoid any disruption to your organisation. This gives our customers added peace of mind that their IT setup is secure, and also enables them to use the new functionality that comes with system upgrades as soon as it’s released and not three months down the line.
5: How many times a day are files lost, computers crashing or servers not working properly?
Boost internal efficiency
As we all know, time costs money. IT setups that run smoothly enable employees to work efficiently without any disruption to their busy working day. One of the other benefits of outsourcing IT support, our IT Support service is there to assist in such instances especially those where your internal IT team would become very stretched.
So ask yourself this question; is your current IT department or IT Support provider delivering in general and are they proactive or reactive?
If you are considering Outsourced IT Support or looking to switch IT Support providers, please get in touch and we would be pleased to discuss your individual business needs.