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The Advantages Of Outsourced IT Support For Small Businesses

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | The Advantages Of Outsourced IT Support For Small BusinessesToday’s digital landscape means businesses need a robust IT infrastructure to operate. From producing goods to storing customer details, almost every aspect of your business involves technology. With so much depending on your IT systems, it’s essential to have access to IT support services. For small businesses, there are plenty of advantages associated with outsourcing your IT needs, including:

1. Reduced Costs

Hiring your own IT staff is a costly endeavour. Accessing the range of expertise you’ll need often means hiring multiple people. However, you won’t need around-the-clock IT support, so hiring your own team simply isn’t necessary. When you outsource your IT support, you can access assistance quickly and easily, without paying full-time staff. With outsourced IT managed services, for example, you’ll can ensure your systems are secure, functional and up to date for a fraction of the cost of hiring your own team.

2. Wide Range of Knowledge

The IT industry is growing all the time and there are an endless number of specialities. You may need help from a software programmer to build a bespoke CRM, for example, and a cybersecurity expert to assist you in keeping your business secure. Similarly, you may require a network architect to create a new infrastructure for your company but a cloud engineer to migrate your systems.

Fortunately, outsourcing your requirements enables you to access the range of expertise you’ll need. At imprezait.co.uk, for example, more than 30 staff work tirelessly to support, protect and enable businesses. Their combined specialties ensure clients benefit from expertise across the whole IT sector. Whether you’re a B2C start-up, a growing B2B business or a medium-sized firm that’s ready to expand, you can access the custom services you need when you outsource your IT support requirements.

3. Results Driven

IT support companies are inherently results driven, which is good news for their clients. When your IT infrastructure is working optimally, you’ll require their assistance less. This means it’s in their interest to keep your systems fully functional and up to date when you’re receiving IT managed services.

Furthermore, IT companies are well aware that their reputation depends on their performance. When it comes to compliance and security, their business success is dependent on the quality of the service they provide to you. In short, you can be confident that outsourcing your IT support will ensure you get top quality service, providing you choose the right company.

Selecting the Right IT Support Provider

Before you can choose an IT support provider, it’s important to determine exactly what type of support you need. Often, this will depend on the systems you’re using and the nature of your business. However, you’ll want to consider your future growth plans too. If you want to grow your business, you’ll want to work with an IT firm that can provide scalable support solutions.

Don’t assume all IT support companies are the same. Talk to potential providers about your business goals and ask how they can help you to achieve them. By doing so, you’ll find an IT partner that is focused on enhancing your short and long-term success.

6 Myths about Outsourcing Busted

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article |Myths about Outsourcing|6 Myths about Outsourcing BustedOutsourcing can often receive a bad rap. In the business world, both big and small, many shun outsourcing due to preconceived notions about what it is and what its outcomes are. The truth of the matter, though, is that many companies are finding great benefits to partnering with external agencies or companies as it helps foster growth and efficiency.

If you’re curious about outsourcing but have been wary about it in the past, the following debunked myths may help you see it in a new light.

Myth #1: It Makes You Lose Control of Your Business

Perhaps one of the biggest misconceptions about outsourcing is that it makes you lose control of your business. However, this is not the case. Depending on what you need to outsource — whether it’s payroll outsourcing or accounting — most companies uphold high standards to ensure that you are fully in control of your own business. Usually, outsourced individuals will only work on their assigned tasks or area and are not a threat to the running of your business. If you are still worried, though, draw up a set of guidelines when exchanging contracts with the outsourcing provider.

Myth #2: The Company Loses Privacy

Privacy is a big issue, but it needn’t be a worry if you develop the right relationship with your outsourcing provider. While many businesses will not want to share their financial information, it is in the interest of the provider to uphold the security of this data as they will be responsible for it. Their reputation rests on how they handle and manage data, and they are also bound to government data protection regulations.

Myth #3: Its Main Achievement is Cutting on Costs

Outsourcing is not just about cutting costs. While this is, of course, one of the primary benefits, outsourcing also provides additional talent, strategy, skills, and value to a business. Importantly, outsourcing also allows a business to focus on priority areas, rather than drain its energies on tasks such as HR and payroll.

Myth #4: It’s Only Available to Big Businesses

Outsourcing is not limited to the world of big business. Small businesses can benefit greatly from outsourcing through increased efficiency and productivity. Many outsourcing companies provide customized services for smaller businesses, especially, as it can cost much less to hire out services to freelancers.

Myth #5: Outsourcing is Inconvenient if Done Off-Shore

Many businesses believe that outsourcing to other countries will be inconvenient due to the time difference. However, these hours can be worked to your advantage if you learn to collaborate online and assign certain tasks and meetings for specific hours. Also, if a business employs a team in India and a team in the US, for example, the benefit is that productivity will be round the clock and result in faster delivery times.

Myth #6: It Results in Low Quality

Another big concern around outsourcing is that the quality will suffer. As long as you partner with a reputable company and establish good relationships, this shouldn’t be a factor. With proper planning, quality can actually increase with outsourcing. If you’re uncertain, get to know the company first and determine whether their standards are different to your own. Again, outsourcing providers have reputations to uphold, so it’s also not in their best interest to deliver poor quality on behalf of a client.

Outsourcing is becoming increasingly popular as businesses seek to expand and improve efficiency and productivity. If you’re considering this move, but are concerned about the outcome, bear the above information in mind and conduct thorough research into reputable outsourcing providers. Good luck!

4 Services Small Businesses Can Outsource

StrategyDriven Managing Your Business Article | 4 Services Small Businesses Can OutsourceRunning a small business requires wearing a lot of different hats. You don’t have to do everything yourself or hire full-time staff to take care of all the daily tasks needed to keep your business going. Here are four services to consider outsourcing.

1. Technological Support

If you use any technology to operate your business, even if it’s just website maintenance and email, you need some type of IT support. It may not be cost effective to have your own team on staff, though. IT outsourcing can help you manage your technical infrastructure and keep everything running smoothly.

2. Janitorial Services

When you have a brick-and-mortar location, you want to keep it clean to protect yourself, your employees and your customers. You can ensure that regular cleaning happens when you enlist the help of janitorial services Minneapolis. You can set up a schedule that works best for your business.

3. Accounting

You hope that all areas of your business run well, but one area you need to be as close to perfect as possible is accounting. Accounting helps you keep track of payroll, revenue, expenditures and taxes. You can use payroll software for basic functions, but hiring outside experts can help you avoid costly mistakes.

4. Marketing

Analyzing the marketing strategies that will work best for your particular business can be time-consuming. That’s why it makes sense to outsource your marketing to a team of professionals. Marketing specialists can focus on finding the best way to reach new customers and keep your current customers informed. This releases you to have the time you need to focus on what you do best.

Part of running a small business is making sure everything is taken care of. Instead of trying to add a lot of employees to the payroll, try outsourcing as many services as possible.

Things To Ask Your IT Support Provider Before Signing

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Outsourcing large tasks and functions is fast becoming the thing to do in business because of the success it can offer, and the top of that list is IT support. Of course, this is an utterly logical thing to do because it will take the technical pressures off you and allow you to stay focused on the core operations of your company while saving a buck or two. But that doesn’t mean you should just hand over your responsibilities to the first IT support provider you come across.

When it comes to looking for a reliable technical support provider, you need to do your Due Diligence, and an easy way to do this is to ask your prospective providers a series of questions to help you understand what sort of fit they will be. So, here’s a few ideas to get you underway:

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What Is Your Experience With Small Companies?

You’ll learn that a lot of IT support companies, like Sphere IT in London, concentrate on large installations and services because it allows for a better economy of scale, which means you’ll need will get lost or confused. As such, ask to see a list of their client portfolio or ask them about the smaller-sized clients they serve. This will give you a better understanding of their operations and whether they will best suit your needs.

How Do We Know You Can Protect Our Sensitive Data?

One of the most important reasons of having an IT support company come on board is to protect your data, so you need to know they are capable of doing this. The techniques hackers use these days are becoming more and more sophisticated and so it is imperative you find experienced digital data defence pros for business. This is where their record comes in. A prospective IT support company needs to be able to prove they have a fantastic track record in protecting their client’s sensitive data. If they fail to do this, then your business may fail to continue operating.

What Level of Support Will They Offer?

Most companies will ask you what sort of support you will need and then offer you a service based on that requirement, so make sure you come to a deal that suits you and that it is detailed in your service agreement. To give you a little bit of advice on this one, make sure you discuss specific areas like phone, email and chat support, as well as remote management if you have employees or contractors that work from home or on the road. You’ll also want to know how often they can visit your office to perform maintenance checkups.

How Are They With Long-Term Partnerships?

Quite simply, the longer the supplier can commit to a partnership the better fit they will be for your company. The reason for this is most network equipment lasts for years and years and years, while most support arrangements only stand for two to three. Of course, this can usually be extended to around five years if needed and if favourable. So find out what sort of agreement they prefer and then see how this will fit in with your organisation.