Your company, whether a law firm, manufacturing plant, or an SMB of any sort, has many IT issues that need to be addressed. But how do you decide which are the most important and whether you should outsource them?
Take a look at this list of commonly outsourced IT problems:
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- Computer/printer repair – If you’re like most companies, you buy brand-name systems from large manufacturers. Do you really want to ship your PC to them and wait a couple weeks for the fix? In some cases, you have to. But in most you don’t. You could have your computer or printer offline for just a couple hours instead of a couple days. Local maintenance contracts could be a huge benefit to you.
- Tech Support for Software – Most likely, you have a system in place for managing your company’s finances, documents, and clients or cases. Those systems work well, but not always perfectly. Usually, you have to outsource your support for them.
- Data Backup & Storage – You might backup all your information on-site (big mistake!). You should have a backup on-site, and in at least one other off-site location. Or you should be on the cloud. However you choose to manage your backups, they need regular testing. You will be served best outsourcing the whole process.
- E-mail Storage & Service – How much e-mail does your firm or company get? How many years do you have to save your e-mails, just in case they’re needed again? Do you really want to be responsible for saving, managing, and organizing them all? What about their security? What happens if someone hacks you and steals them? A lot of work goes into safely storing e-mail..
- Antivirus & Data Security – With hackers constantly poking and prodding your IT infrastructure for weaknesses, this may be the biggest IT function to outsource. Hackers love to target smaller law firms and SMB’s because they know that in general, the security’s much weaker.
- Network Assessments – Just how ready is your computer network to support your existing user base? Network assessments give you that information and much more. You’ll also learn the current strengths and weaknesses of your security. You’ll get an intimate understanding how your network performs, and what changes need to be made to improve performance.
IT Outsourcing Can be an Adventure, but It Doesn’t Have to Be!
It’s important to have an IT support team in place that you can trust. And when you get the right one, you save lots of money on operational costs and get the ability to scale fast.
