Cloud tech can offer businesses so much, but when it comes to maintaining it, there’s an important decision to make: Should you outsource your tech support or maintain an in-house team? Read on to learn more.
Increasingly, businesses are choosing to outsource their IT support services rather than have an in-house tech support team. There are many advantages to taking this path; here are seven of the best ones.
Outsourcing IT support can save a lot of money
The average in-house IT support manager has a salary of £35,000 to £40,000, year after year. There’s also the costs of recruiting a new manager, or other team members, as well as the constant training they’ll need to stay agile.
For the smaller business, this salary is too much, but there’s still the risk of problems causing long spells of downtime while untrained staff struggle to resolve problems.
By outsourcing IT support, maybe to a company like Probrand, there’s a fixed monthly payment which is easy to predict and budget.
Your in-house team isn’t present or experienced enough
You don’t need IT help all the time, so even though you rely on your systems to function and be productive, it’s not worth employing a full-time team. However, a part-time team, or just one IT guy, can’t be there all the time and may not be able to cope with a critical problem on his or her own. This means an emergency call-out on top of the salary and this is where it gets expensive.
With an outsourced team, you can call them as much as you need to – there’s no extra charge.
You can give your existing team or techie a back-up
If you only have a small or part-time IT team, using a support service provides you – and them – with back-up. If your sole tech guy is on holiday, or overwhelmed, you can call in the cavalry. You’ll have a large, experienced team ready to come in and help. Plus, you can have your systems monitored to stop problems before they have an impact.
You don’t have to recruit your own staff
Recruiting is expensive. It’s also stressful and if you’re not very IT-savvy yourself you might not have the first idea of what you need to ask for!
If you outsource, all this is done for you and you don’t even have to ask the techs about their hobbies and where they see themselves in five years…
You can focus on your business
IT problems are a huge sinkhole of time and if they take you away from strategy meetings, trade shows, your accountant and, worst of all, your customers, they can end up costing you a lot of money.
All you and your staff need is a number and you’re good to go.
Outsourcing IT support increases productivity
Asking your staff to be responsible for their own (and colleagues’) IT security might look like a good money saver, but it’s not. There’ll be five or ten minutes here and there sorting out glitches, fiddling with printers, rebooting here, there and everywhere. Being able to call support in to diagnose and fix the irritating little problems saves lots of time day after day, which aids productivity no end.
You’ll have access to all the latest technology and solutions
It’s important for IT support services to stay at the cutting edge of things such as cloud tech, so they do. They constantly train staff and often have partnerships with major technology developers and providers; all of which they bring to you. Your IT support service will also be able to hook you up with other service providers, so if you want to offer remote working, or cut your telecoms spending, you only need to ask.
