How to Reduce Downtime Using IT Support Services

Disruption in the marketplace has long been heralded for improving company growth. Introducing new ideas and strategies have proven time and time again to help beat competitors in quality of services. Outsourcing IT support services has become one of these strategies.

In his book, The Outsourcing Revolution, outsourcing specialist Michael F. Corbett states that outsourcing can increase productivity and competitiveness 10 to 100-fold.

He goes on to reveal that large companies often outsource half of their IT support services.

You’re certainly not alone in shifting towards an outsourcing platform. The real question today is; Who wouldn’t outsource? The gains in productivity are far too great to overlook.

It’s a competitive marketplace out there, and globalization will only flood the market with more companies attempting to earn their market share.

Any time spent managing or dealing with difficult IT solutions is time not spent improving your product and company. It’s a fast-paced world where every second counts.

We’re bringing you our opinion of what is the best way to reduce company downtime using IT support services. There are more benefits from bringing in an IT support team than you would think.

The Cost of In-House IT Support Services

There’s no beating around the bush. Outsourcing significantly reduces costs and increases revenue.

Manufacturer Procter & Gamble increased its innovation productivity by 60 percent after outsourcing R&D activities. It also saw a resulting 10 billion return on over 400 new products.

General Motors saw similar results, reducing accounting costs by 20 percent after outsourcing in 1998.

It’s been proven again and again that outsourcing can drive down costs. Now how does that reduce downtime? Think of it this way. If you cannot afford your IT support services team, all of your time is down time.

Though, it goes further than paying IT salaries.

Running a technical system throughout your company is expensive. Besides the human element, you also have to account for hardware and software life span.

It’s not so much that hardware will fail, but that ever growing technical standards will obsolete your system. The software you’re using will grow tremendously in even five years time.

Think of it like an operating system. Windows 7 won’t run on 10-year-old hardware. Your hardware will work the same way.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal to upgrade until you realize that it’s all out of pocket expense.

An outsourced IT support services company will handle the burden of upgrading for you. You’ll have no downtime after realizing your hardware isn’t compatible with the new software update.

On-Site Support

When we hear companies hem and haw about outsourcing IT support services it usually boils down to one detail. Time. They argue that an on-site support team can fix the problem quicker than outsourced IT support services by virtue of being closer to the problem.

However, outsourced IT teams are now routinely providing on-call engineers that are better equipped to handle a problem than in-house support. The engineers fix problems with the product, while in-house staff only diagnose issues as they arise.

An outsourced engineer that works with your system type every day has probably seen a similar problem to yours. An in-house team doesn’t have that luxury.

It’s the beauty of outsourcing to an all-in-one IT company. They provide your system, set up your system, and fix your system, all on your time schedule.

There’s no more waiting for in-house staff to train themselves on your new IT setup. A team of people dedicated to understanding your technical infrastructure is only a call away.

Outsourcing to Maintain Current Systems

Similar to offering on-site support, all-in-one IT support services solutions make maintenance easy.

Phone support works wonders for fixing problems almost instantly. Let’s say an email server won’t let users log in. That’s a huge issue. But a quick phone call to IT could have it fixed within minutes, as opposed to an in-house team tinkering until they’ve found a solution.

Your downtime is almost non-existent.

Hardware maintenance also ties into the cost side of things. Upgrading hardware and integrating it into your system is not only expensive but complicated as well.

When faced with the choice between a team learning on the fly to upgrade hardware, and one who has done the upgrade many times over, it’s an easy choice.

When downtime is a concern it’s a simple choice to hire an outsourced company whose only concern is your IT solution.

Information Security

By now you’ve probably figured out the pattern: anything an in-house team can do an outsourced IT support services solution can do cheaper and faster. So, it’s not surprising this also applies to security.

Your company needs strong security against hackers. We live in a world where certain online groups will hack a companies website for seemingly no reason.

You do not want a breach of consumer information. This not only puts your customer’s information in danger but jeopardizes their trust in your business. No one is keen to do business with a company known for weak security.

We’re going to sound a bit like a broken record, but again, familiarity with your IT solution sets apart outsourced workers from an in-house team. Someone with intimate knowledge of the defenses your IT system has will work faster and more efficiently than someone who only recently learned the system.

There’s also the chance that your IT system’s manufacturer won’t divulge security information to your in-house team. Choosing to outsource to your IT support services system provider’s staff guarantees that you’ll be working with a team who fully understands the program’s security features.

Hopefully, this blog post has given you an understanding of the benefits an outsourced IT team can bring to your company. The saying goes, “time is money,” and in our globalized world that couldn’t be more accurate.

If you’re looking for a telecom service with a world-class IT team, get in touch with us.