Modern businesses need to maximize their use of current technologies to remain competitive in a fast-changing world. With their limited budgets and in-house IT experience, small businesses need to make the most out of the technology available to them.
Maintaining a full-time IT department typically isn’t an option for smaller businesses because it’s prohibitively expensive, inefficient and time-consuming. So without an IT team, how can they possibly implement the latest technologies and stay ahead in crowded industries? The answer is clear: a combination of IT consulting and managed services.
Shifting Focus to Core Business Functions
Employees are more productive when they’re doing what they do best, and as a business owner you need to be managing your team in such a way to further that goal. If your employees are spending time working with technology they’re not completely familiar with, productivity will plummet as will their motivation and happiness.
By hiring an IT consulting firm, you’ll be better equipped to allocate your resources and gain more time to focus on core business routines, such as increasing sales or helping customers. IT consultants are experts in their field who invest their time and efforts into researching solutions, fixing problems and implementing new technologies. When you’re paying internal staff to tackle that gargantuan task, costs are guaranteed to skyrocket.
Gaining a Competitive Advantage by Reducing Downtime
Time equals money. If your IT staff are already overburdened, downtime events will be even longer than they should be. Hiring an IT consulting firm will give you a competitive advantage by allowing you to troubleshoot IT issues while simultaneously adopting technologies that boost productivity.
Some examples include collaborative cloud computing solutions and automated monitoring and security. IT consulting firms can provide remote systems monitoring around the clock as well, making sure that your systems are always running optimally and securely.
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A lot of small businesses face major challenges when it comes to expanding, particularly with regards to their IT services. Some stretch their existing systems beyond their limits, overloading both their hardware and their technicians, stifling productivity in the process. In other situations, businesses might feel the need to scale back to cut costs.
Either way, there’s a major dilemma when relying solely on in-house expertise or the lack thereof. With an IT consultant, however, there is always plenty of help available to help your business scale with the demand it faces. Flexibility is built into the managed services business model and scalable services are all but ubiquitous for modern providers.
Tap in to Highly Specialized Talent
Technology is constantly evolving, but from an enterprise IT perspective, the industry isn’t getting any simpler. There are simply too many products and services for businesses to choose from, hence the reason IT is best left to the experts.
Professional technology providers and consultants are experts in their fields, providing the up-to-date information and services you need to implement the latest and most suitable technologies to keep your business moving forward. Even if you have a dedicated IT expert on your team, he or she can specialize on only so many things, whereas an IT consulting firms maintain a team of professionals with a broad range of knowledge across disciplines.
Facilitate Knowledge-Sharing
IT consultants and managed services work well together when it comes to improving productivity through collaboration, communication and knowledge-sharing. For example, an IT consulting firm can help ease the stresses involved in migrating to cloud-based systems while also providing the training your team needs to get the most out of the new implementations.
True productivity is best realized when complex technology is simplified by way of clear communication channels, round-the-clock support, and centralized data access and control. Nonetheless, getting to this stage requires extensive planning and expertise.
Truewater provides the expertise your company needs to build a blueprint for success. Our IT consulting services are second to none, so if you’d like to get started with a complete analysis of your existing network, give us a call today.