Outsourced IT Support: What it is and why you need it.
62If you have a business and rely on your computers for the functioning of your business then you need to ensure your computers and network keep running to ensure your business keeps running. If you can afford one and can recognise a good one then you should hire a full time tech support technician, or if money is no object a whole IT team. The return on investment is well worth it in both the short term and the long term.
If however, you are a small to medium enterprise then you are unlikely to have sufficient cause to justify the hiring of a full time technician. You may think that the best option would be for you to hire a technician for a proportion of the working week depending on how many computers and users you have. As a general rule your should have one to two hours per week for every ten computers in your establishment. Although this number will vary based on your exact user base and desired results.
The problems with trying to hire someone for a day or half day per week are obvious. Namely, very few people want a working week that short and if you were to get someone for that amount of time per week then how could you be guaranteed that you would have them on-site when you need them? That's where outsourced IT support comes into its own. With outsourced IT support you can get the benefits of having all of your IT needs met without the headaches of hiring, human resources and time and resource management. To meet your needs you should be looking at a service that provides all you system management needs while addressing repair of your system should anything untoward occur. From my own experience we supply a variety of IT support and Tech Support options which are outsourced to us by companies. From email support to network and workstation security it is always prudent to hand over responsibility to those who specialise in meeting your IT requirements.
Very frequently we visit premises where the last 'IT guy' fitted out a bespoke system that cannot be trusted to maintain system uptime or security. This is mainly due to a lack of training in industry standard approaches to IT implementation which results in a false dependence being created with the incumbent IT support. A good IT support company or service will use industry standard approaches and tools to implement the majority of your IT requirements meaning handover and system robustness are greatly facilitated.
So to summarise, if you are a small or medium sized business then outsourcing your IT may be of great benefit to both your business and (potentially) your staff morale.
Cathal O'Brien PhD is a freelance writer and runs a Tech Support and Computer Repair business in Dublin, Ireland.
