[See original 2012 post here.]
When it comes to IT services, New York City is home to the best managed IT service providers in all of North America. If you’re looking for superior IT services within your budget, look no further. With rent being off the charts and spaces being so tightly confined in NYC - it’s understandable that you are looking for services that can give your budget more mileage. The question now is - where do you start?
What are managed IT services?
Managed IT services, New York especially, are being used in a wide variety of different ways based on the business in question. After all, New York is home to a diverse number of businesses. While no two businesses operate in exactly the same way, there are a lot of similarities that can come about when a company chooses to outsource its IT operations.
Managed IT services ensures that your IT infrastructure functions to its maximum potential. It keeps your operations lean, agile, and efficient. When it comes to managed IT services and support, there are a ton of different and highly effective options. In order for companies to keep their costs as low as they can, outsourcing IT functions - through effective IT consulting - is a foolproof way to keep your operations within budget. However, in 2020, perhaps two of the best reasons why companies outsource their IT functions are to cope with rapid changes in technology and ensure that their functions cater to everyone sheltering in place.
Now that we’re in unprecedented times during the COVID-19 pandemic, ensuring business continuity should be our utmost priority.
ALSO READ: 10 Basic Network Security Tips for Small Businesses
Outsourcing a business’ IT needs makes a company more stable. We aren’t just talking about stability in its simplest form – no. The type of stability that IT outsourcing may come in a lot of forms – as the threats to a company’s stability can come from sources both inside and outside of the company itself. These threats may be devastating physical events such as natural disasters or fires, or they can simply be business downtime that may happen when a server goes down for maintenance. Regardless of industry, managed IT services for small businesses should ensure business continuity.
Nowadays, technological changes and innovations are inevitable. At the most basic level, your business should be able to upgrade your software, your hardware, and other technological accessories and peripherals to keep up. Outdated technology and software could spell trouble as cyber criminals are known to exploit tech and software that’s not patched. This makes you more susceptible to attacks. Fortunately, managed IT support services can help you with this problem. You can never lose by having a dedicated third-party IT team ensuring that your systems are functioning properly 24/7/365.
ALSO READ: 7 WAYS IT CONSULTING INCREASES LONG-TERM PRODUCTIVITY FOR BUSINESSES
The outsourcing of IT functions is also great for saving money in a lot of different ways. When you purchase something in the IT field, you need to have both the money for it and the money for its software. You also need to have the money to make sure your technicians are properly trained for the job. However, when you outsource this functionality, you do not have to worry about all of these expenses.
In fact, outsourcing all of your IT services saves you a fortune versus keeping your technology in high rent areas where space is at a premium. It also saves you from having to pay technician salaries and benefits, as well as allowing you to save the money it would have cost to keep the server rooms at the appropriate temperature and humidity levels. Overall, the savings you can reap from outsourcing your IT operations are vast.
The efficient use of employees is another great reason why companies will outsource their IT solutions. When your employees are working according to their skills, great things happen. However, when your employees are constantly scrambling around in an effort to deal with low-quality IT solutions, nothing gets done as well as it should. Your employees have skills, and they can't use them effectively if a lot of their energy is being used trying to work with IT infrastructure that barely works at all. From a sheer logical perspective, outsourcing your IT operations is a definite boon to your business.
Not ready to commit to anything? Try IT consulting.
When it comes to IT consulting, New York offers you tons of different, highly effective options. IT consulting services help clients in an advisory capacity. According to Gartner, IT consulting services help clients assess different strategies regarding technology and, in doing so, align their IT strategies with their business and/or process strategies. Put simply, IT consulting firms support a client’s technological goals by providing actionable recommendations regarding architecture, operations, and implementation planning.
What does an IT consulting company do?
- Here are some of the most common functions of the best IT consulting firms:
- Help you with your overall IT strategy
- Data backup and disaster recovery planning
- Assist in the implementation of new systems/infrastructure
- Health checks and audits
- At times, IT staffing or on-site services
- Study your company’s business functions and improve your bottom line through an enterprise resource planning (ERP) software
Perhaps the most important thing to take into consideration is that you, as a company, can do this all by yourself. However, you have to put in the time and effort to successfully implement these strategies. For instance, properly introducing an ERP software to your company will help in integrating a full-suite of business processes and applications such as accounting, human resources, sales, marketing, and other tedious administrative tasks.
Generally, hiring a managed IT services provider or an IT consulting firm helps you create an actionable set of methodologies that ensure success for your organization. As a managed IT services provider, we’d love to say that outsourcing your IT needs is the future. However, 2020 has proved that there really is one thing constant in our life: unpredictability. But that doesn’t mean you should just leave your systems vulnerable to attacks - having an IT strategy specifically developed to meet your business needs is key to dealing with whatever issue you may encounter in the future.
After all, whether you choose to work with an IT services provider or an IT consulting firm, the only thing important is business continuity and stability, right?
For more information on how an IT services provider can benefit your company, schedule a free consultation with ETech 7 today!
