Whether you’re a large company, a small startup, or somewhere in between, your organization needs comprehensive tech support. Even if you have an in-house IT team, your staff may be too busy focusing on big-picture goals and business initiatives to worry about tedious routine maintenance or unexpected errors and failures. And what happens if a cyber security attack or natural disaster occurs?
Because of the ever-changing nature of today’s business IT landscape — which requires constant monitoring and updating as well as cutting-edge technologies to stay competitive — the costs of maintaining a healthy IT infrastructure add up fast. In order to evaluate the true average cost of IT support services, there are certain factors you’ll need to examine closely.
Tools
Sure, your internal IT team has credentials and experience, but they can’t improve technology and maintain a robust infrastructure for your company without the help of multiple powerful tools — none of which come cheap.
In order to identify and address issues, your business needs both a ticketing portal and a monitoring portal. How much will it cost to purchase, implement and maintain both of these systems? Does your internal staff have the bandwidth to automate and perform necessary upgrades?
There’s also the issue of remote access for your organization, which will allow IT professionals — whether it’s your own internal team working remotely or a managed services provider who takes care of all your company’s IT needs — to provide support and maintenance from anywhere at any time. If you don’t have the help of a managed services provider, this means figuring out which remote access application best suits the specific needs of your company. You’ll also need to factor in the time and money it will take to implement.
Staff Changes
Hiring new staff doesn’t mean your organization will benefit from uninterrupted and immediate IT support. When you onboard new team members, there’s a large investment to consider, in terms of both time and budget. Whether a few valuable employees are leaving at the same time, or you’re simply hiring on new staff to round out your internal IT department, you’ll incur quite a bit of downtime getting new employees up to speed on your business operations. That’s a lot of time and effort spent for as few as one employee, only to hope that they’ll stay put for long enough to make that investment worth it.
For long-term employees, you’ll need to invest in continuing education through workshops, certifications and classes. And speaking of which, who will assume their IT responsibilities while they’re busy growing their IT education on your dime?
Business Processes
It’s not just the technical aspects you need to consider — you’ll also need to plan on investing for the logistics that are necessary for your organization to carry out IT support and services. This includes factors such as:
- Streamlining and updating: Who will be responsible for the big-picture approach to your IT support processes? If it’s your trusted IT department, who will cover for their daily responsibilities while they’re busy tackling the IT business strategy?
- Documentation: Not having detailed and comprehensive documentation set up for new employees is a costly mistake. Consider how long it will take an IT tech to create these crucial business resources while also tending to their normal duties.
- Hierarchy of roles: Unless you have a one-person IT team, you’ll need to consider who is best suited to manage the IT department and goals, and how much time and funding this will take away from the daily technical responsibilities of their role.
- Scalability: Most businesses find that, even with a capable internal IT team, there are still periods of excessive work and growth that require additional support. It’s important to determine how much extra support you’ll need, and which aspects of your IT functions you’d like to outsource to a managed services provider.
As you can see, there’s more to IT support services than meets the eye — and the bulk of that support comes from routine maintenance, monitoring and protection. Thankfully, a managed services provider offers all of those services and more to streamline your business for just a fraction of what an internal team costs your business in budget and downtime.
From 24/7 network monitoring to help desk and IT project management, our IT engineers are here to support your IT infrastructure so that your employees can focus on the bigger and more pressing initiatives for your business. When you partner with the experts at Taylored Systems, we’ll help streamline and protect your network and IT operations for a more secure and productive business overall.