We spend a lot of time and pixels giving reasons to work with a managed services partner. You could say we are biased, of course, and that would be fair. However, we also think that almost every small or medium-sized company could benefit from a bit of outsourced IT expertise. That’s because it’s virtually impossible to keep enough employees on staff to cover every aspect of network security, backup and disaster recovery, helpdesk monitoring, and so on (just to name a few key service areas).
In today’s post, however, we want to get beyond all of that. In fact, we want to give you one very simple reason you might want to hire an outsourced IT partner to work with: because you don’t know what you don’t know.
If this sounds like a riddle, then read on. We think the simple truth of it will persuade you to our point of view.
IT Isn’t Just About Certifications and Repairs
The classic view of IT support is that it’s all about having someone come to install a printer, fix a network error, or set up a new workstation. And naturally, you want someone who has the right experience or certifications for the job.
Those are undoubtedly important day-to-day IT tasks, but much of our work is a lot more complicated and forward-thinking. It involves looking at our clients’ challenges and anticipating which emerging technologies will work for them. It also means considering threats that are being faced by other client companies, or even other industries, to see what might be on the horizon. It’s about managing all of these factors with budgets, employee training, existing technology, and other constraints.
For us to give that kind of support to our clients we need to have many minds working together, and those people need to be exposed to different situations and points of view. Even more than that, it takes a great deal of training, reading, and continual education.
This brings us to the crux of things. However large your IT department would have to be to support your business, it would have to have nearly double the number of personnel to accomplish the same tasks while still retraining employees and looking forward to the future. Most small and medium-sized companies don’t have the resources to support personnel for day-to-day operations. They certainly don’t have the budget for additional staff members plus training seminars, conferences, workshops, and spare equipment to practice with.
By spreading those costs over dozens of businesses we can do all of that – and make it more affordable for our clients than hiring a small in-house team.
Looking for Commonsense IT Solutions?
At Fantastic IT, handling routine technology issues is just part of what we do. Our bigger job is finding long-term solutions for our clients that make sense for their businesses. If that’s the kind of attention you want from your managed services provider, then contact us today so we can schedule a time to talk.