3 Reasons Businesses Need IT Support

IT support services are constantly evolving. For Managed Service Providers to remain relevant, providers need to adapt with the industry and customer needs.

We’ve discussed in other blog posts the importance of having an IT support system readily available. Everything from having a team able to provide fast, efficient support to resolving issues in a timely manner. An IT support team provides a business a piece of mind. Knowing you have a team of tech specialists watching the company infrastructure 24/7 is unbeatable. I’d like to elaborate on how having a managed service provider can help your bottom line for your business.

#1 – Relieves You Of All Tech Related Issues

Every once in a while we hear stories from business owners who waste time resolving unnecessary tech issues. For instance, a business owner is on the phone working with Time Warner troubleshooting why the computer’s cannot connect to the Internet. This is not what we call time well spent. After troubleshooting is performed with the tech on the phone and issue is still not resolved. There’s a good chance a TWC tech will come onsite to repair. This causes more down time than necessary. Eventually, the issue will get resolved, but productivity had come to a halt. Time is so valuable to any business. A task like this can waste time and resources, while the business can be focusing on other tasks like generating revenue for the company and servicing their customers.

A scenario like the one described above is a common issue. Here’s a situation where a Managed Service Provider can come in handy. Instead of you dealing with the issue, the managed service provider will have implemented a monitoring system. The IT team would be notified of the Internet experiencing an issue. The provider could perform multiple troubleshooting steps and resolve the issue remotely. Time spent here would be minimal for the owner as the team would be working on resolving the issue. Instead of the business being down for days, the Managed Service Provider has reduced downtime to hours.

#2 – Free Up Time To Perform Business Related Tasks

If the first paragraph wasn’t enough to make you think about having a managed service provider. Let’s discuss another scenario. What happens when an employee’s computer has a virus or worse is hijacked by a malicious attacker. What does a company with no IT background do? Well you can try to download an anti-virus software if the virus lets you. You can also try calling a family member who has some knowledge about computers. A plausible approach. If you are not able to download an anti-virus software or have a family member check out the issue, what is your next step? Time is wasting and revenue for the company is not being generated. Implementing makeshift repairs are not long term solutions.

Perfect example of how a Managed Service Provider can provide superb value. It is best practice to implement an anti-virus software that evolves with daily new threats. The Managed Service Provider would have implemented an anti-virus software long before the virus infected the machine. The anti-virus software we implement is automated to eliminate potential threats prior to the virus attacking the machine. I’d even say we wouldn’t allow employees to download software without proper authorization from a higher up. Time would not be wasted having the Managed Service Provider monitoring the computer and company’s network. The support team would receive an alert, review if the anti-virus software was able to zap the virus, or act quickly on getting this issue resolved.

#3 – Outsource IT Tasks For Peace Of Mind

Are you still thinking about hiring an IT support specialist? Here’s a worst case scenario for any business. Suppose the business has a file server onsite. This specific file server is accessed by the entire company on a daily basis. One day, out of nowhere, the server decides to stop working. A bad hard drive has caused the server to malfunction or the server is no longer available. As a business owner who has no IT background or knowledge has no idea what is going on. The individual can fiddle around and waste valuable time attempting to troubleshoot. The scenario provided is an example we’ve come across. Spending time troubleshooting is a waste of time for any business. When you outsource your IT support you are receiving a peace of mind. How? A Managed Service Provider is constantly monitoring all of the activity on a business’ network.

For example, we’ll assume all of the company’s data is located on the internal server. When a company server becomes inaccessible, a business can be crippled. What is a business to do? There are steps a business can take in order to prevent such disasters. For example, a redundant backup implementation can help save time restoring the data should that be an option. If the data is backed up on a daily basis. There’s a good chance restoring the data will take hours instead of days. Knowing there’s ongoing backups being performed can help with retrieving lost data. How much money would the business lose if a critical component could not be accessible? We don’t want you to find out.

Conclusion

Hiring a professional IT Support team is a big decision. For instance, determining how much to budget for an expense of this caliber is never an easy decision. I hope the examples provided assist with making a sensible decision when employing a Managed Service Provider.