A key way for many small businesses to drive profitable growth, is to outsource their IT support to a dedicated IT support provider. This support often goes beyond the usual monitoring, maintenance and helpdesk support that is often associated with this service. IT also includes securing a business from cyber threats, implementing highly cost-effective cloud hosting solutions, and modernizing how the business operates with new tools and streamlined workflows. The benefits are numerous, including saved time, enhanced network performance, and a lower IT spend.
The cost and benefits of IT support services depends on the location, requirements and the required services of the business. Many small businesses overestimate the costs and underestimate the benefits of IT support. In this piece, we discuss the variety of benefits and services that IT support providers can give to small businesses, enabling you to make an informed choice about if your business would benefit at this stage from partnering with a reputable IT support provider.
How IT Services Can Provide Value For Small Businesses
As discussed, the scope of services that IT support providers can bring to the table is more than many small business owners expect.
IT support services can also include cybersecurity solutions, business process automation, cost-effective network virtualization, cloud computing solutions, implementing and optimizing new systems, enhancing network performance and security, and more. Providers will naturally vary, but the majority offer these solutions.
In a nutshell, IT support providers help businesses to drive technological improvements that enable profitable growth. These range from saving time and money to enhancing productivity and collaboration, while also helping them to remain compliant and secure.
IT support services are useful for keeping your business running smoothly from day to day. They will minimize downtime, slow network speeds, help you to organize and secure your data, and provide prompt day-to-day support.
However, it’s worth saying that no two providers are the same, so attaining profitable IT support is also about choosing the right provider! Here are seven areas where IT can add value to your business, that you can look out for when you’re choosing a potential provider.
IT Support Solutions
1. IT Readiness
IT readiness involves ensuring that your IT enables your business to get its work done efficiently and reliably, including when the business is operating under unusual circumstances. When Covid-19 spread across the world, many businesses switched their operations to a remote working setup among other changes in order to compliantly continue operating.
In a nutshell IT support is about getting the best from your IT regardless of whether your business is operating as normal, as well as in unusual circumstances.
An IT support provider can equip your business with remote working capabilities should it ever need it, develop a robust data and systems backup solution that it can rely on if it ever loses access to its data, and offer alternative connectivity solutions so that it can remain online if its usual solutions are unavailable.
2. Saving Your Business Money and Time While Increasing Return on Investment (ROI)
Alongside boosting network performance and reliability, IT support providers help your business to avoid costly fees that arise from getting IT support services on an ad-hoc basis. This gives a more predictable IT spend while allowing your business to tap into a wider portfolio of services to empower how it operates.
When you run into IT issues they can seem to come out of the blue, taking time and energy to resolve. An IT support provider will be able to get you back up and running more quickly, and will be able to resolve the issue at its root-cause so that problems do not repeat themselves.
IT support providers will often be able to smoothly undertake technology projects, such as migrations to cloud working platforms like Microsoft 365, expanding or migrating your on-premise servers, as well as help your business to automate and streamline its workflows.
3. Enable Your Business To Provide Excellent Customer Support
Reliable and excellent customer service is a key pillar to achieving sustainable growth for a small business. If there are connectivity issues and downtime, this can compromise the customer experience. IT support providers can help your business to find faster, more reliable and cost-effective telephony and internet solutions so that it can deliver customer support without downtime and disruption.
Oftentimes, a business will consider IT support after running into issues with its IT that effect the delivery of their services. With an IT support provider, you can take preventative actions to make your business reliably scalable so that it is better placed to deliver continued excellence in its support.
4. Network and Business Security
Keeping your business secure and compliant is crucial for protecting your customers, finances, and reputation. Comprehensive cybersecurity coverage is an area some business owners might not associate with IT support providers, but this is not the case! From data backups and rolling out security fixes on your behalf, to implementing network and device protections and continually monitoring your network for threats, an IT support provider can protect your business from the evolving cyber threats at play today.
5. Time Management
Time is money, and IT support providers can save your business lots of it. An IT support provider takes the burden of IT from your shoulders and can help you with future-focused strategic guidance on how to leverage IT to support your growth plans. You can let go of the stresses of maintaining, managing and expanding your IT with the help of an IT support provider, who will offer fast, tailored and expertise-driven solutions for your business throughout its technology landscape.
6. Empower Your Knowledge
IT support providers empower businesses with a deeper understanding and overview of their whole IT environment. This includes opportunities, risks and trends, alongside actionable insights. On the strategic side, they can give you expert guidance on how to align and optimize your IT to drive your growth plans forward. When issues occur or when you’re considering a new IT solution, a small business can get personalized guidance, solutions, and oftentimes direct help with implementations.
7. Optimize Your Business Growth and Development
The success of small businesses hinges on making quality decisions that enhance efficiency, customer value and profitable growth. With practical and strategic support and guidance, an IT support provider can help your business to seamlessly navigate its technology, avoiding any mishaps, tech incompatibilities and missed opportunities.
The ways an IT support provider can optimize business growth are numerous, ranging from assistance with physical infrastructure, cloud computing, integrating systems and workflows, as well as managing users and providing dedicated and prompt support to your growing team.
Overall, IT support can be a great opportunity for your small business to drive more profitable growth. By finding the right provider, your business can be empowered to focus on what it does best with the help of technology. In the end, each business is different, so taking the time to consult with providers to find out how they can support your business will be an important step to accessing the best support on the market for your business. With the right provider, you can take your business to new heights and focus even more on delivering for its customers.
Centarus: A Leading IT Support Provider
At Centarus, we specialize in tailoring our services to cater to the unique requirements of businesses in San Francisco and the broader Bay Area. Whether your business operates within the city limits or spans multiple locations across the Bay Area or even reaches across the nation or around the world, Centarus is your trusted partner for implementing the ideal IT solutions.
Our expertise is designed to help you cut costs, optimize your workflows, and enhance productivity. Our team of professionals is dedicated to ensuring that your IT environment in San Francisco and the Bay Area is not only highly secure today but also well-prepared for a secure future. Get in touch today; we’re here to support your IT needs.
