Your competitors, your customers, and your staff are more tech-savvy than ever. This is good news for the evolution of tech in business, but it also constantly raises the bar for IT specialists. IT teams are handling everything from low-level break/fix tasks to high-level information strategy. While some in-house IT personnel have the bandwidth to swing between the two disparate levels of complexity and urgency, many organizations benefit from managed IT support services.  

Scalability and your in-house team

Do you already have a talented IT staff member or IT team? If so, fantastic! They have the advantage of organizational familiarity. From the jump, your IT team oriented themselves toward the goals and mission that drive your company. They are well-acquainted with the team, tools, and how to handle typical technical issues from first-hand experience. 

Businesses often face the challenge of how to increase IT coverage without going over budget by adding full-time experienced professionals to their team. Their skill sets are highly valuable, and they are crucial to the growth of your business. Fortunately, the solution is simple. Managed IT support services such as staff augmentation make scalability affordable.

Choosing to thrive: The benefit of staff augmentation 

 managed it support services
Managed IT support services work best when business and IT strategies align.

Your company’s productivity must match its growth, but with a completely internal IT workforce, coverage gaps are unavoidable. Without additional support, even the most capable teams can become overburdened by increasing performance expectations. Burnout and potential turnover are regrettable consequences. However, you can strategically strengthen your IT team's capabilities and prevent negative repercussions with highly qualified outside specialists provided by managed IT support services.

Managing and anticipating service delays

managed it support services
You can strategically strengthen your IT team's capabilities and prevent negative repercussions with highly qualified outside specialists provided by managed IT support services.

There are a variety of reasons businesses invest in managed IT support services. Do you often encounter similar scenarios that are alleviated by staff augmentation? 

Your go-to IT team member isn't available, and the IT bench isn't particularly deep.

Outsourcing to a managed IT support firm is a fantastic solution for the team and for the bottom line. It’s important to remember that hiring new full-time staff members is more expensive than just their yearly salary. Consider the time and effort spent recruiting, interviewing, analyzing, and onboarding candidates. Now compare that with the ease of choosing an experienced IT consulting firm to provide staff augmentation. You save time and money without sacrificing experience and expertise.  

You need additional coverage for support services, including help desk, system monitoring, and/or network security.

Requests for support rarely stop at the close of business. An active IT presence after hours can open the door to new opportunities for your company. Your investment in managed IT support services will benefit international clients and customers who need 24/7 access to your team. 

Managing support tickets restricts your IT staff from enhancing your business' digital infrastructure and delays expansion.

While keeping your IT infrastructure accessible and up-to-date is an essential part of IT management, your team's talent is much better used by expanding your current digital infrastructure to meet your future needs. 

Instead of handling day-to-day IT tasks, the IT director should collaborate with the CTO and CIO on aligning IT with business strategy.

78% of IT heads report they are communicating with their organization's board of directors more than ever before. To satisfy KPIs and scale your organization overall, IT leaders must have the opportunity to align on company growth goals. Businesses realize that IT has evolved past the break/fix philosophy and that IT-driven insights now actively influence corporate strategy. Data, security, and automation are essential to the success of every department.

Hiring managed IT support services

If your company is new to hiring an IT partner, keep in mind your decision will undoubtedly influence the path your organization takes. The evaluation process should include more information from prospective partners than just scope, skills, and price. It's important to get a sense of their strategic approach. 

To do so, consider asking the following questions: 

  • Have you worked in our business’s specific industry before, and do you feel capable of meeting the industry's compliance standards? If not, are you willing to do the research to get up to speed? 
  • How will you support our business strategy and outcomes?
  • How do you plan to help optimize our daily workflow?
  • How will the relationship benefit our employees?
  • In order to evaluate performance, what metrics will you use, and how often will you document and report your findings?
  • What does open communication look like to you?
  • In the event that this relationship isn't a good fit, what should we do?

If you are switching vendors, they should be eager to know why you are doing so and should outline what they would do differently for you. It is important to remember that a great partner will try to understand your most pressing issues and desired outcomes during your conversation. The likelihood of them valuing your mission and vision is low if they fail to ask questions that demonstrate their plan to contribute to your long-term and short-term goals.

Adding a third-party consultant to your C-Suite

It's hard to maintain a position as an industry leader without understanding how new technology affects your business. Without a firm grasp of the impact that technology has on your industry, your business can suffer. 

A third-party IT partner that offers leadership-level support leverages their experience to your advantage. They stay current with technical developments, and most importantly, they understand your business and identify opportunities to improve it.

Meet your CIO

managed it support services
Your investment in managed IT support services will benefit international clients and customers who need 24/7 access to your team. 

Despite not officially working for your company, a Chief Information Officer can still have a significant impact on your executive team. CIO insights influence organizational structure, and managed IT support services work best when business and IT strategies align.

Inevitably, new technology will emerge at a rapid pace, but the benefits do not come from software alone. By partnering with a C-level leader from a third-party consultant like Vudu, you will develop a trusting relationship that will allow you to leverage influential technologies to better serve your organization.

You can expect your C-level leader to: 

  • Facilitate guidance between executives and managers.
  • Significantly shorten the decision-making process.
  • Decrease the cost of an end product.
  • Establish more efficient processes.
  • Cost significantly less than a full-time CIO (or chief technology officer, CTO). 

IT data scalability

Data is a business asset that merits its own line on the company's balance sheet. Every employee should have access to actionable, high-quality data that explains performance goals and KPIs. Understanding your data improves collaboration across departments.

There is no doubt that data storage and backup is a common offering among IT service providers. However, many organizations do not have a strategy for what types of data they collect or how they store it. It is important to partner with business-minded IT professionals whose competence goes beyond managed IT and translates data into workable improvement solutions.

How Your Business Benefits

Keeping up with rapid growth is a challenge that most successful businesses will face either now or in the near future. To prepare, you should not ask, "Is this the right step for me?" but rather, "Am I preparing for growth?" 

IT tools have never been so powerful as they are now, yet few businesses use them effectively to manage IT services. You have the opportunity to develop a long-term strategy that integrates IT with business growth. You can free up your most valuable IT staff to build a digital infrastructure that will grow along with your commitment to deliver business information and gain traction in your industry, all while Integrating IT insights into business strategy.

At Vudu, we are technology wizards who want to bring IT magic to your business and achieve supernatural results. Want to know more about how managed IT benefits your business for the long haul? Contact Vudu to learn how we can serve you for years to come. Tell us more about your goals.

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