Choosing to outsource IT support is a difficult decision. An in-house team will be at work in your company every day, able to fix any issues that arise from the software they’ve developed or installed. But in what scenarios might you wish you’d outsourced your IT support? Here are five cases that can help you make that crucial choice.
- Installing a new phone system. It’s highly unlikely that any of your employees have the skills to install a new phone system; even if they do, are they up to date with the latest advancements in technology? Do they have the contacts required to get you the best deals on equipment and software? Are they certified by the appropriate companies? We’re willing to bet that at least one of the answers to these questions is “no”. IT support companies can provide all of these things and may leave you regretting it when you learn that a major competitor paid far less than you for a similar quality phone system.
- Having an IT crisis when your employee is away. If your systems crash, it’s unlikely that you’ll be able to fly the appropriate person in from a holiday for emergency recovery, and moreover he or she may not have the knowledge to truly fix the issue or recover your important data from a crashed PC or servers. An outsourced IT support team will always be available for help whenever you need it and can be with you in a very short time, especially if both you and your IT support are based nearby. Moreover, an IT team will have a varied team with any skill that could possibly be required to solve the crisis and fix any damage, if it’s at all possible to do so.
- Company expansion. A big expansion means new software, new hardware, and new employees. That leads to training that one or two employees, no matter how knowledgeable, simply can’t handle. If your small business has too much to handle with training and installation, call for help. An IT company will have all the knowledge you need to expand successfully and will be educated in the best ways to train new workers to use hardware and software that they were previously unfamiliar with.
- Technology changes. Unless you’re willing to pay for employees to take new classes, head off to conferences, or educate themselves with expensive and hefty books, it’s likely that they’ll fall behind ever-changing technology very quickly, sticking to what they know rather than innovating. Training employees to use each and every new system that you need as it comes out is expensive and time consuming. It’s a much easier task to outsource. You’ll automatically have a team of experts whose job it is to keep up with the latest technology and programs and help you implement them when you choose to.
- In-house server crash. Because your outsourced IT support team has its own servers, they can offer services to help you remotely store all of your important information. For example, they can back up all of your important data on their servers, so if yours are compromised for whatever reason, you won’t have lost a thing. A properly configured remote backup solution will first store everything and then update periodically to index and save changes, so all of your documents will be up to date and accessible whenever you need them, no matter what’s happened to your original servers.
