Do you know how these top-tier corporates are managing their zettabytes of IT systems?
Three words — excellent IT support.
IT support is one of those areas present in business of any scale but often ignored. Companies that give due importance to IT support are the ones that have smooth functioning IT processes.
Good IT support can prepare your business for any new challenges and ventures to create easy working spaces for the employees. Finding such reliable IT support is critical — even for startups.
If you’ve decided to get support for your IT system, then you’ve made the right choice. But choosing the best IT support can be a tricky deal breaker.
This blog will help small business owners to analyze, understand and find the right IT support to build and secure the future of their companies.
5 Things You Need to Know When Finding IT Support for Small Businesses
In 2015, 15% of US adults didn’t use the internet. Right now, the numbers have reduced to 7%, which means 93% of US adults are active online.
Your business needs to co-exist where the market is– online. Without strong IT support, you cannot grow your business in the cut-throat digital world.
Here are five essential things that you should consider when searching for an IT service provider.
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The Scope of IT Support
First of all, you need to understand that many companies offer IT consulting services and managed IT services in the market. You need to get your priorities straight to find the perfect support team to help you scale up.
Some businesses may already have an IT team in place and may want support for a limited time. And some would wish for a long-standing agreement for IT support to take charge of specific IT processes.
Whatever your requirements and reasons are, note them down on paper. These should typically be the responsibilities you want your IT support team to take charge of.
Having this checklist will make it easy for you to talk to different service providers and see if they can meet your requirements.
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The Different Types of IT Support
Many small businesses look for external IT support because of the flexible services they can get. There are a few definite models that IT consulting firms provide. It is important to know and pick the one that is best for you.
Firstly, there’s the pay-as-you-use service where you ring up the support team when you need an extra hand or deal with some specific issue. The next one is the 24×7 IT support. The external team will become an extended part of your internal team. This team will monitor your IT infrastructure, fix them, run regular checks, and assist in any future developments.
There’s one more model that’s in between the pay-as-you-use and the 24×7 support. And that is the specialized services. You hire the team for specialized IT support for a few of the functionalities or applications. The duration of the agreement is usually long-term. For example, you can hire a team to run regular malware checks or for disaster management.
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The Value for Money
As a small business, you don’t want to spend a lot of money on IT support. However, don’t expect out-of-the-world services from companies charging peanuts.
Analyze how much you can pay for the IT services and the current market rate as a guide in hiring an IT support team that’s within your budget. You should, of course, get the value for the money you spend. So, make sure to ask about the team’s expertise and if they would be able to cater to the services you require.
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The Security Measures
‘How safe is my data?’, is one question that we tend to contemplate over and over again.
Many IT consulting firms pride themselves on being the top providers who value your privacy and security more than anything else. And you need to find this type of company to support you.
Ask the team about the different security measures they’ll be taking from their end to keep your data safe. Ask about the authorization protocols and the access controls. Let your in-house IT guy discuss and analyze their security systems. Ask them about their policies and security systems for phishing attacks, malware protection, DDoS attacks, hacking, and data breach protocols.
This will give you an idea of how much you can rely on them to keep your information safe and secure.
If you’re already using an outsourcing team, ask them questions and see if they live up to your requirements. If not, it’s essential to make a shift to a new provider now.
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The Level of Control
With an IT support team, you need to clear on where you draw the boundaries. The work of an IT support team is to ‘support’ your IT operations while the complete control rests with you.
While you don’t need to micromanage them on a day-to-day basis, you still need to check up often, set access limits, and have overall control. An IT support team will help keep the everyday operations up and running and regularly do a standard set of tasks.
But anything more than should come under your control and guidance.
Conclusion
Finding that right IT support team could relieve you of a lot of headaches and small processes that consume so much of your time. Keep our 5 pointers in your mind when choosing the right IT support team.
If you’re looking for a reliable and experienced team for IT support in Corpus Christi, Texas, then reach out to us at LayerOne Networks now.