Technology is the number one driving force for change in the business world. Constantly evolving and adaptive technology provides your business with the opportunity to access new internal efficiencies, reduce business costs and drive new growth.
Yet having the resources and knowledge to keep up with these trends and ensure technologies are working as they should be can be difficult, especially for small to medium-sized enterprises (SMEs).
That’s why an increasing number of small and medium-sized businesses are partnering with outsourced IT support providers for all of their technology needs.
In this blog, we answer some of the most common questions we receive in regards to IT support. We hope these answers give you a better understanding of what you can expect from an IT support provider, and how your business will benefit.
What is IT support?
Outsourced IT support is a service in which a professional IT support provider (also known as a managed IT services provider) helps manage the network, users, services, and devices that are integral to a company’s day-to-day operations and processes.
An IT support provider will monitor your network, hardware and software for issues, providing you with maintenance and technology advice that ensures seamless operations across all departments and roles within your company.
What services are included in IT support?
IT support is more than just calling a technician to fix a broken computer or a disconnected service. It can include:
- IT infrastructure
- IT strategy
- Cybersecurity solutions
- Network monitoring
- Disaster recovery and data backup
- Cloud migration
- Office technology support
- And much more!
What sort of business is IT support suitable for?
No matter how many employees you have (whether it’s less than 10 or more than 100), all businesses require some form of IT support to run effectively. An IT support partner is the easiest and most cost-effective way to achieve that.
The question is what capabilities do you have in-house? Perhaps your organization has an IT team for basic support queries but needs an outsourced provider to ensure your IT strategy is supporting business growth? Or maybe you have the strategy aspect covered, but need a partner to provide maintenance for some of the day-to-day business functionalities that your team doesn’t have time for.
Your IT support partner will take the time to learn about your company’s requirements and even conduct an audit of your technologies, network and system. From there, they will be able to suggest some areas of support that will most benefit your organization.
What are the benefits of IT support?
Partnering with an IT support provider will bring a huge number of benefits to your organization. Some of those key benefits include.
Reduced IT costs: IT costs can get expensive, especially when you don’t have complete visibility and control over how effective your systems and technologies are. An IT support partner will conduct a complete audit of your IT strategy, ensuring your optimizing your current technologies and planning future growth with new technologies in mind.
Seamless business operations: As technology grows increasingly complex, maintaining hardware and software has become more challenging. An IT support partner will ensure the maintenance and proactive issue resolutions of your IT infrastructure, systems and network, preventing downtime and allowing your internal operations to run seamlessly.
Allow you to focus on core business functions: Your company’s IT is vital to smooth processes, but it isn’t what drives true business growth. Having to divide your attention between core business functions and IT concerns takes your time away from what truly matters, driving profitability. Outsourcing your IT support allows you to focus on what you do best, growing your business.
Access reliable expertise: IT knowledge and experience is incredibly vast, no individual person on your in-house IT team can cover all the specific skills to keep your company’s technology running smoothly. Your internal IT team has to handle a wide array of services, and unless you're a huge enterprise firm it’s likely they have the expertise and knowledge to handle all of these requests. Outsourcing your IT support gives your business access to a diverse team of dedicated IT professionals who have experience and expertise in a range of different IT areas and industries.
How much does IT support cost?
Since IT support covers such a broad range of IT services, prices vary depending on the requirements of your organization and the complexity of the job. The only way to know how much your required IT support would cost is to engage a partner and undergo an IT audit to find out your company’s needs.
Want to learn more about IT support and how OT Group can help your company implement an IT program that scales up as you grow? Contact us today. We provide IT support across the Toronto to Ottawa corridor, and we’d love to help you.
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