A business’s managed IT support services play a crucial role in day-to-day operations. As today’s marketplace grows increasingly digitized, industries across the world are investing more and more money into better technology tools.
In 2020, businesses spent $3.86 trillion globally on information technology such as hardware, enterprise software, and communications services. This amount is expected to grow to $4.2 trillion by the end of 2021.
When you think of services your IT vendor provides, you likely think of things like help desk specialists, data storage, cyber security, and other support services for managing your technology tools.
As your business seeks to digitally optimize with more and better technology and software, you need managed IT support services that can scale with your business and meet the evolving needs of your staff and stakeholders.
But how do you know when your business is outgrowing its managed IT support services? What are the signs your IT vendor is costing you time and money? What’s the best approach when upgrading this aspect of your operations?
Here are some red flags that your IT vendor may no longer be serving the needs of your organization—and what to do about it.
Some IT companies expect to field numerous support tickets, and they approach your data and technology with a break/fix mentality, meaning they’re mainly reacting to issues as they arise. This is the reason they charge you based on the number of employees you have.
As your company scales and inefficiencies become more pronounced, your employees will likely be submitting a growing number of support tickets. This means your IT vendors take longer and longer to resolve issues, which in turn can lead to a critical loss of time and money.
According to a business technology survey, North American businesses collectively lose $26.5 billion in revenue each year due to IT downtime and data recovery. An average company loses $159,331 per year.
When this high level of downtime happens to you, it may be because your IT vendor has taken the completely wrong approach. Reacting only when there’s an issue addresses the symptoms and ignores the root problem that is creating the need for all these support tickets in the first place.
Are your IT partners tracking and analyzing help desk data to identify the root issues that could be costing your company? If not, they should be.
No matter how big the office, a business is its own ecosystem of interconnected departments and personnel. In an environment increasingly dependent on technology and data-driven operations, that’s true now more than ever.
If there’s an inefficiency impacting one part of the company, it’s likely to affect everyone, and soon enough the frustration will reach a boil. Issues like internet outages, malfunctioning software applications, and data loss interrupt critical workflows.
While these may seem like manageable annoyances in the short-term, they can have far-reaching impacts over time. It’s not a question of if, but when these disruptions keep you from closing a deal or meeting a key deadline that causes a customer to question your business’s reliability.
If your IT vendor can’t manage to keep your office functioning on a day-to-day basis, how can you trust them with managing critical security and data storage risks?
When your IT vendor can’t adapt to the proactive approach needed to stay competitive and leverage data for the best possible business outcomes, it puts your company back on its heels.
In other words, if they aren’t as proactive as they should be, you can’t be as proactive as you must be to stay ahead of the competition.
You need an IT vendor capable of offering strategic input so you can get the most out of your data systems and optimize efficiency. Rather than simply showing up when something is broken, your managed IT services should help you integrate technology in ways that are sustainable and scalable.
A lack of trust may mean your IT vendor hasn’t proven that their value is sustainable. If they seem disorganized, communication is lacking, or they’ve made errors that cut into your bottom line, lost trust can be difficult or impossible to recover.
This relationship will only become more strained as your business continues to grow without sufficient support to back you up.
There are many challenges and risks that come with technological integration. Your IT partner needs to know how to integrate data-driven systems in ways that comply with evolving industry standards and market mandates.
As a company leader, you’re busy steering your ship. You need to be able to trust your IT provider as technology experts who will make the best possible strategic recommendations.
The break/fix mentality of many IT vendors simply does not serve today’s data and tech driven business world. You need to be able to trust your managed IT support services to lead you through a world with increasingly rigorous technological demands.
This high-level of tech saturation by consumers, businesses, and their workers will only increase as time goes on, which is a phenomenon we call “tech intensity.”
Vudu’s formula for meeting the demands of tech intensity is: adoption x ability x trust.
The right IT vendor will be able to meet each part of the formula. They should be able to guide you in adopting new systems to keep pace with industry leaders, as well as managing regulatory compliance, ongoing projects, and business goals as staff members train and acclimate to new systems.
Your IT partner should also act as a technology leader for your company, giving you the ability to leverage predictive analytical data and get the most out of your technology tools.
Finally, you shouldn’t have to become an expert strategist in every new technology integration. After all, you’re already using your expertise to help your business succeed and your time and resources are limited. You have to be able to trust your IT consultant or specialist to offer strategies and recommendations that yield results.
At Vudu, we reject the old break/fix approach of managed IT. As your company integrates more technology over time, our wizards can help you leverage your data to provide actionable insights to grow your success.
At Vudu, we are technology wizards who want to bring IT magic to your business and achieve supernatural results. If you're outgrowing your managed IT Support services, we can help. Tell us more about your goals.
