If you’re a small business owner, you have to constantly evaluate whether to do it yourself or hire someone else. How do you know when you’ve crossed the threshold from being able to do it yourself to having to hire an outside vendor to do the work?
When it comes to IT support, you should consider the following:
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- It Takes You or Your Staff Several Hours to do Work a Pro can do in 1 Hour: Whenever you realize you’ve become grossly inefficient at what you do, it’s time to start looking at vendors. If you have to Google every last IT item that needs to be fixed,you’re probably in over your head. If your employees are constantly running way behind on their assigned tickets, it’s time to start considering an IT vendor.
- You have to Work Long Overtime Hours Just to Stay Caught Up…or Behind: Very few people can work 50-hour and longer weeks for months or years at a time without the quality of their work dropping. If you or your employees have a hard time staying around 40 hours consistently, you may want to start considering IT vendors.
- You Have Missed Calls and Deadlines: A good business owner almost never messes up time-sensitive tasks. If you are consistently missing deadlines and not getting back to customers on time, you may need to think about outsourcing.
- Way Too Much Clutter on Your Employee’s Desks and PC Desktops: This could mean they’re disorganized. But, make sure you talk to your employees and see how things are going. If they’re highly stressed and at their capacities, then all the clutter and disorganization could be due to a workload they can’t handle. Talk with your IT team to discuss how you can outsource your IT support tasks to best meet their needs.
- You & Your Employees Work Longer than Planned: Everything was going to get done in 10 hours today, but you’ve now been working for the 13th hour. In this case, you might be too unrealistic about what you can really accomplish during the day. And you may be doing that because there’s too much on everyone’s plate. It’s time to start considering how IT outsourcing could take some of the pressure off your business and help it grow.
Wrapping It All Up…
Computer and network maintenance take a lot of time to manage. And these needs can grow rapidly as you scale. If you find your IT team’s current time resources stretch to their limit, think of which IT services you could outsource, and consider contacting a vendor.
Learn more about the author Bob Martin
