Just as regular vehicle maintenance ensures your car remains road-ready and helps you avoid a costly vehicle break-down, puttting a plan in place to manage your network can keep you or your business from becoming “stranded.” There are a number of good reasons companies are increasingly relying on outside managed IT support for everything from the company network to database management. In fact, most companies find a lot of value in outsourcing general IT management as well as opting for managed IT support.
What is a Network?
In its simplest terms, a network is a group of connected devices that are able to communicate with one another and also share files and other information. In addition to computers, a network might include shared internet access, printers, security systems, and any number of devices and systems. A network’s size can range from a simple home network to networks for small businesses to large-scale company networks for hundreds–or even thousands–of employees.
Why Consider Managed IT Support?
Even the smallest networks can fall prey to problems, such as data breaches and other cybersecurity issues as well as problems communicating with printers or other peripheral equipment. As a network grows, the potential for problems grows with it. Meanwhile, the capacity for the company to effectively manage the network internally becomes a growing challenge.
Without managed IT support to safeguard the network from issues, the company is left relying on the ability of its staff to take on responsibility for maintaining the network, which often takes away from the company’s primary operations.
But the reality is, if a company doesn’t outsource IT support, it has to either add extra responsibilities to existing staff, often distracting them from their primary job roles, or hire a dedicated, internal IT support team. Hiring internal IT staff means the cost of salaries, benefit packages, workspace and other costs associated with expanding the number of employees.
Benefits of managed IT support
When a network fails, it can be more than just an inconvenience. In most businesses, the company’s network is integral to its ability to provide services and products to its customers. A down network costs a company time, resources and revenue.
Imagine the sales team planning a big presentation for a potential new client. That client would represent the company’s largest account to date. A meeting is planned by the sales team to persuade this potential new client to take its business from its current partner and move it to the company. What can go wrong?
Without managed IT support? Plenty! Picture the company’s color printer unable to connect to the network. Or, the file on the network that contains the most important documents for the meeting suddenly becoming inaccessible. Or even worse–a breach in security that causes the campaign to be accessed from some unknown outside intruder.
As you can see, the possibilities for disaster are numerous. But all could be either avoided or quickly mitigated if the company has opted for managed network support.
Keeping the company network running smoothly and minimizing any downtime is just one of the reasons that individuals, as well as businesses large and small, opt for outsourcing IT support, including managed network support. By outsourcing the management of its network, a company can also avoid the burden of installing, integrating and implementing the hardware and software that make up the network.
In the end, the cost of outsourcing IT and network support becomes becomes minimal compared to the cost that a down network can mean to a company’s bottomline. In addition, the reliability of managed IT and network support will pay off in decreased frustration that arises when a network fails or another IT issues arises.