It's time to outsource your IT

Businesses this year have had to face challenges unforeseen by most, and with the infamous virus lingering around like a divorced uncle at Christmas, seamless IT solutions are an absolute must for flexible working. There are a multitude of reasons as to why outsourcing IT support is a great move, but here’s five of the best.

Acronym avoidance

IT jargon and acronyms are often overwhelmingly obtuse, routinely sounding like the names of quaint Welsh towns. If a problem stops your business dead in its tracks, deciphering reams of error messages and warning boxes is something only a calm expert is going to be able to handle, not a panicked employee. There’s nothing worse than suddenly being hit by a DNS server failure on your B2B CMS, the computer is telling you to contact your ISP or the PCs on your LAN VPN may be vulnerable to a DDoS attack, and not having a clue what any of it means. Think of outsourced IT-support as much a translation service as it is a team of computer whizzes. All of whom are dedicated to getting any outages sorted, whilst explaining what’s happened and how they’re going to fix it ASAP – as soon as possible.

Go wherever you will go

There are an infinitesimal amount of positives that have come from the pandemic, but something it’s forced all of us to do is address our work/life balances. Digital infrastructure has been adapted, home-offices built and Zoom meetings scheduled. As it turns out, nearly everyone in the UK has enjoyed working from home. Splitting working hours between home and the office, looks to be the new normal for most businesses, presenting exciting new opportunities – although it’s not without its challenges.

One of which is remote IT support. Without everyone centralised into one physical space, it’s become tricky for many employers to provide tech-support when things go wrong. Outsourcing IT support gives everybody one centralised source of help. Dedicated technicians are always on standby, with a multitude of remote-solutions to any IT issues staff may be experiencing.

Security: A Team

This doesn’t mean having Mr T on the door of your office, but addressing the reality of having an internally-hired IT engineer, versus a whole company of IT experts at your disposal. A singular dedicated engineer no doubt has its perks. However, they also take annual leave, get sick and may even take their skills to a competing company. Each scenario strands a business with gritted teeth and crossed fingers, hoping that nothing goes wrong and nobody to answer day-to-day queries.

Outsourcing grants both extensive knowledge and reliability. Different specialisms from a carefully crafted team allows bespoke, expert support, whenever you require it. Understandably, some businesses worry that outsourcing can be cold and impersonal, however a great IT-support company will see themselves as part of your team and be committed to enabling your business to thrive.

Little black book

Another positive of outsourcing to an IT firm, is that they’re far more established within an industry that may be in a completely different sector to your own. This expertise also comes with established relationships. Relationships that can often provide perks for users of their services; whether it be accessing the best support for specific hardware, or accelerated software updates. Something as small as an industry recognised e-mail address can be the difference between a door opening or remaining shut, so an IT company’s little black book can make that little bit of difference when supporting your business.

Peace of mind

In the world of business, the importance of ease and stress reduction is often overlooked. Scurrying around to ensure an IT problem is fixed shouldn’t be the responsibility of a managing director or founder, but can often fall to them in times of stress at SMEs. Even simple computer issues have the ability to frustrate and derail a whole working day. Paying an IT company removes the potential of earnings loss and a sky-high blood pressure, simply by shifting the responsibility to a dedicated team. Most problems are solved with a short diagnostic phone call, followed by a swift solution, a service that’s worth its weight in gold when pressure is looming.

As previously mentioned, flexible working is set to be the way many companies across the UK conduct business moving forward. This presents fresh new challenges, all of which can be vastly mitigated by simply outsourcing your IT needs. It’s not as expensive as you may think either, have a look for yourself here.