Many businesses are afraid to outsource IT because it is so crucial to their operations. In other cases, the fact that is always been kept in-house makes them reluctant to consider any other way. Yet outsourced IT support services are growing at roughly six percent per year because so many businesses are outsourcing everything from web hosting and IT security to the entire IT department. However, the fact that many of your competitors are doing it isn’t reason enough for your business to join in on the trend. Here are 10 reasons to outsource your IT support in 2019.
1. You Save Money Overall
Perhaps the best reason to outsource IT support is that it allows the average firm to save money. Your business needs to have 24x7x365 support for its systems. When you outsource IT support to a top-notch third-party, they have the budget to pay the best people to be on call whenever needed. Yet you’re not burdened with the full cost. Instead, their costs are divided between all of their clients, reducing how much you pay. For example, they’ll often have advanced IT security experts on staff ready to handle any issue that arises, but you’re not paying their salary.
2. You Can Control Better Costs
One of the benefits of outsourcing IT services is that you can control costs. You know how much you’ll pay per month based on the service level agreement you enter and the services you request. You can scale up the amount of server space, the number of software licenses and services that you pay for. You can plan for the increased costs and scale up as required.
3 You Get Access to the Latest Technology at a Reasonable Price
Technology is constantly evolving. This includes but isn’t limited to software, hardware, and infrastructure. For many small businesses, the challenge is trying to keep up with the rate of change. Not all companies can afford to pay for the latest software, hardware, and other tools they need to keep up. When you outsource your IT functions, you’ll typically be able to access the latest technology because it is part of their business model to provide and maintain it. Let them set up the cloud servers and maintain the latest IT infrastructure.
Go with a top-rated IT services firm to gain access to a full range of IT solutions. For example, Clutch for the second year in a row saw Be Structured recognized as Top IT B2B in Los Angeles. This was because of their excellent customer service and the variety of IT services they offered. They offer hosted private clouds, hybrid clouds, and public cloud migrations. They also provide backups and full disaster recovery services. They can aid you in moving to a new office or upgrading your existing network.
4. You Don’t Have to Worry about Recruiting IT Staff
One of the biggest benefits of outsourcing IT is that you don’t have to compete with big businesses to hire the best IT professionals. You won’t have to wonder if your Human Resources department can figure out what skills and experience on a resume equal the skills your business needs to fill new openings. Nor will you be left in a lurch if the only in-house programmer leaves.
Instead, the IT outsourcing firm is responsible for its staffing. And they know what skills and experience are required to serve their customers. You don’t have to worry about recruiting someone who turns out not to be qualified to handle key issues like IT security or data migrations.
A side benefit of relying on professional IT firms is that they’ll keep their staff up to date on everything from industry standards to IT security. You don’t have to oversee the development of your own in-house IT department. Nor will you need to worry about whether they have the right knowledge to keep your systems up and running.
5. It Frees Up Internal Resources to Do What You Hired Them to Do
Almost every small business has someone who isn’t officially in IT designated as the de facto tech support person. By outsourcing IT services, you’ll free up internal staff for more productive work, the work you actually hired them to do.
You could dedicate them to developing your next app, testing out software applications for potential future use, better servicing your own clients’ technical needs or planning your overall IT strategy. You may also see greater productivity with less reliance on overtime for key employees. The financial manager familiar with operating systems isn’t continually called in to fix computers and instead focuses on their job. You certainly won’t have a financial manager or engineer waste hours trying to troubleshoot an issue that could be resolved far faster by an IT expert.
6. Your Company Moves Up to the Same Level as Big Businesses Immediately
A major argument for outsourcing IT to third-party service providers is that they’re already at the level big businesses meet in terms of IT security, data management, and other industry standards. By moving to their cloud or letting them handle your IT security, you can say that you meet those industry standards too.
7. You’re Mitigating Your Risks
When you partner with a third-party IT support provider, you’re reducing your overall risk. Your business won’t be paralyzed because the company’s only IT professional quit. If your building is flooded or burns down, you don’t lose all of your hardware and the data on it. By moving to the cloud, you’re working with IT professionals who can minimize the risk to your data, your website, and your key infrastructure. Outages may occur, but they’ll be as short as possible, minimizing the impact this has on your business.
Another factor to consider is the risk management you can build into the contractual agreement with the IT services provider. You can require them to respond to issues in a timely fashion or else take responsibility for your losses. This opens the door to receiving damages from them if their mistakes cost your business money. You can’t do this with an in-house IT team.
8. You Can Become More Proactive Regarding IT
We already mentioned how freeing up internal resources allows people to focus on their own core competencies or plan for the long-term. When you outsource IT support, you can become more proactive in IT management. You are free of handling account set up requests and break-fix requests. Instead, you can plan a broader vision for the company.
How do you want your website, apps and related IT presence to function five years from now? What should your entire IT infrastructure look like? You’re freed up to create an overarching vision of where you want to be. Then you can work with your IT services provider to make those changes, exploring new IT services and solutions or doing in-depth research on the options available to you now. Or track your resource usage and increase your bandwidth and database capacity on the IT service provider’s systems before problems arise.
9. It Is a Selling Point to Your Customers
When you outsource your IT support to one of the best companies in the business, this becomes a selling point for your business. You can assure customers that their data is secure on your server, whether it is the credit card information of customers or sensitive competitive information. You won’t have to worry about the answers to questions like whether or not your servers are audited or the firewalls are up to date, and whether you meet PCI security standards.
10. If You Need More Support, the Arrangement Is Value-Added
You may be managing your current IT infrastructure well enough today, but it may not be good enough in the future. And there is no point in reinventing the wheel. If you outsource your IT support today, you can take advantage of value-added services later at relatively little additional cost.
For example, you could work with the IT service provider to offer employees the ability to work on your network from home. That could allow employees to securely work from home and improve their productivity. Or you could use these services to improve your business continuity plan. If bad weather has made travel impossible, some employees may still be able to log in from work and handle key issues.
You can work with the IT services provider to move software applications to the cloud or explore other services that improve efficiency and productivity. While the outsourcing of IT support allows you to focus on your business, you’ll be able to identify value-added synergies that yield even greater benefits.
Conclusion
While you may be concerned about outsourcing IT needs, the reality is that you can’t afford to keep everything in-house. Whether it is keeping your network secure, receiving 24×7 support in an increasingly competitive world or you’re under pressure to cut costs, you must consider outsourcing IT support in 2019 and beyond.
