As a small business owner, you quickly learn what your limitations are when it comes to making investments in your business. It’s not that you don’t want to make them. You just don’t want to spend the money, only to find the solution that is not adaptable to your business and you lose money on it.
That said, you are unlikely to go wrong investing in an IT service as a small business owner. Increasingly, services are being computerized and automated and you don’t want your business to be left behind.
What are IT services?
According to the Gartner IT Glossary, IT services are “the application of business and technical expertise to enable organizations in the creation, management, and optimization of or access to information and business processes.”
That’s quite a mouthful. Breaking this down means that IT services are goods or services that help users optimize their business or service offerings. You read that right. An IT service can actually help you make your product or service delivery better for you and your customers.
There are different types of IT services depending on whether you want to build or design a system or install software for your business. Some common IT services are:
- Backup services
- Cloud services
- Network security
- Help desk services
- Consultancy
- Training
6 ways your business can benefit from using more IT services
1.You can save on new equipment and software
As a small business owner, every penny counts. As much as you’d like to, you can’t afford to spend money on purchasing expensive specialist hardware or software for your business.
“Cloud” based software services are the latest technological innovation to come to your rescue. This is essentially a service that can be accessed from anywhere over the Internet, like this cloud based veterinary software, which helps organize the practice’s information in a form that is easily accessible to vet and staff alike.
When you have a cloud based service, you are also freed from storing and backing up your information as well as updating your security. A cloud service will do all of this for you.
2.You don’t have to hire a separate IT department
When you are a small business owner, you wear many hats. The primary reason you double up is you can’t always afford to hire the specific skillset that you need.
IT is a very specific set of specialist skills. This is not a hat it’s advised you wear because of the kind of damage that could be done to your system from the outside, or even your own well-meaning efforts.
When you hire an IT service to pick up one or more functions that an in-house IT department would normally do, you pay one flat monthly fee. You have access to the service and supporting advice as needed.
3.You can easily recover lost information
There are various scenarios a business owner can lose data in, all of the potential nightmares. There could be a natural disaster in your area which damages your computers. You could be attacked by a hacker, virus, or malware. Or, in one of those things that just happens, your computer just stops working.
If you’ve contracted an IT service provider, your information is safe and backed up for your use on one of their servers. No need to worry about your precious business data.
4.They can tell you how to set up your infrastructure
If you’re thinking of expanding your business, probably hiring a few new employees or offering customers a new service, have you ever thought about what is required for a successful office network? Or if you’re a remote business, what would it take to keep everyone communicating and give them access to the necessary company data?
It’s a lot. First, you’d have to decide what hardware components you’d buy, then you’d have to decide what software was necessary and best for your needs and install that. You’d have to figure out where your data was going to be stored, on your own servers or externally. You’d have to figure out how to network all of this. And then you’d have to keep this network running properly.
Perhaps most importantly, you’d have to worry about how to keep all of it secure.
You read that and your head is probably swimming. This is why it’s better to hire an IT service to provide any or all of these services for you.
5. They can do your training for you.
Your small business takes up much of your time. You certainly don’t have time to get new employees set up in the system, or to train older ones to use new software.
You can get an IT service to do this for you as well. One of the hallmarks of a good training program is that they are led by people who know the hardware or software components. You can’t train anyone if you are becoming familiar with the components or software yourself.
You can also leave the IT aspect of your new employee orientation to them. You can have an IT service prepare a prepackaged video that can get all new employees set up on your network, including setting up their passwords and emails.
They can also give your business packaged literature to troubleshoot common problems or set up a hotline for employees to call when they have issues with hardware or software.
6. Improve employee productivity and retention
You are not the only person that needs to focus to keep your business afloat. Your employees also need to keep on top of their duties and you do them a disservice if they have to worry about the network going down, or the printer jamming at the most inopportune times. Worse if they are the ones who have to troubleshoot the issues themselves once they happen.
This can eventually cost you big in two ways. Your productivity is decreased because your employees’ attention is divided and you may have trouble keeping staff as they become frustrated with a job environment where nothing works.
Solve both problems by outsourcing to an IT service.
Look at the kinds of problems an IT service can solve for your business. Hiring an IT service is therefore a solid investment that can take your business forward.