How Does Outsourcing IT Help Fuel Business Growth?

by Felicien | Jan 14, 2019 | Education

You already know what IT stands for: information technology. What you might not know is that most companies have a pretty poor grasp of how best to put IT to work for them.
Why? For the simple reason, that too few businesses take the time to consider the best approach to managing IT needs. They assume it’s as simple as keeping the computers running and the network humming, but that’s not it at all. Not by a longshot.
Actually, the nature of your IT setup has a significant bearing on the efficiency, productivity and profits of your company. By outsourcing your IT needs to an expert, you can majorly fuel your business growth today.
Outsourcing Is a Time-Tested Model
The first obstacle to overcome in using outsourced IT as a means of cutting costs and increasing profits is fear. Many people, unfortunately, are intimidated by taking this critical step.
Outsourcing IT is nothing new though, explains Business.com. “What started as a novel practice of U.S. companies sending IT jobs to India in the 1990s has now become a $88.9 billion industry that connects businesses with IT experts worldwide, from Belarus to Argentina.”
It’s not just big businesses, either: “Companies of all sizes make use of this service to cut down on costs, bring innovation into the business and open up more time to focus on core operations.”
In other words, this is a well-established business model that companies the world over are using the pad out their bottom lines and streamline their workflows. With time-tested results across companies and industries, there’s no reason to fear it – and that’s just the beginning of the benefits.
You No Longer Rely on a Break/Fix Model
Most businesses have a small IT staff on hand. Depending on the size of the company, that might mean a dozen personnel members, a single employee, or Richie over in accounting who is “pretty good” at troubleshooting network problems.
Now, that’s not to say that you can’t have your own staff and get along fine. But in this “break/fix” model, you’re waiting for something to go wrong before you respond. That means you could potentially suffer a breakdown during a seriously important time (Black Friday or April 15th, for instance), which would dramatically affect your bottom line.
It also means you have relatively little ability to forestall those breakdowns. Without the in-depth knowledge that comes from being steeped in the IT profession, you can’t predict coming obstacles and work around them before they become an issue. As you might expect, however, companies that manage IT for you can do just that.
Outsourced IT Can Help You Grow Intelligently
An unfortunate side effect of rapid growth, many businesses find, is that they quickly bloat their existing infrastructure and aren’t sure where to go from there. For instance, the number of orders coming into the system exceeds your ability to manage those orders. Or the number of new products creates a need for a vastly more agile website, but you haven’t created it yet, resulting in backlogged orders and emails.
Those are just a few examples, but they highlight an important point: Without an IT expert in your midst, your information technology fails to grow with your business. Instead, it can only hurry to catch up later on – at which point you might have ticked off many of your formerly enthusiastic prospects.
You can avoid that when you worked with outsourced IT professionals. They know exactly how to plan for changes coming down the pipeline and adjust your systems to accommodate them upfront. Next time you roll out a new product, for instance, they can adjust the infrastructure to handle additional orders. Or they might help you speed up your system at a crucial time – again, Black Friday and Tax Day come to mind.
Whatever you need, they can help you see it coming and respond intelligently, rather than just waiting for the worst to happen.
You Can Focus on What You Do Best
If you’re reading this article, then money says you’re not an IT expert. You are an expert in your niche industry, which is why you started a business in the first place. Logically, your best bet for growing your business is to continue focusing on what makes it thrive. That might mean:

Rolling out new products and services to keep your existing customers happy and bring on new ones
Creating value-added extras to make your products more appealing
Educating yourself, your employees and your customers about the nature and benefits of your products and services
Appearing at trade shows, attending conventions or throwing events to increase the awareness of your business
Negotiating new partnerships with others in your industry

As you can see, “Stopping in the middle of your busy day to fix a finicky router and get the finance department back online” is not on that list. That’s because it does not add measurably to your business growth. At best, you can address the issue quickly so that it doesn’t dampen your workflow.
An IT company, on the other hand, can help you avoid that altogether. They can take care of the issue – or even better, stop it from happening in the first place – while you focus on what made your company great in the first place: interacting with VIPs, attracting clients and customers, innovating.
The takeaway? By turning your IT needs over to a true professional, you can stop worrying about whether you’re “doing it right” and start focusing on what you do best. Say goodbye to the days of confusion, anxiety and technical failure, and hello to a new era of productivity and growth now.

Is My Business at Risk if I Don’t Have Managed IT Services?

by Felicien | Jan 14, 2019 | Education

Your business is at a higher risk for security breaches and data when you don’t utilize a managed IT services company. A managed IT service company is more affordable than you realize. Managed IT service can be priced as a flat monthly fee, a per-user fee or a per-device fee. Then your business has a fixed line-item on your budget, and the assurance that your risks are managed by a professional service 24/7.
Not convinced? Let’s look at the realities of not have a managed IT service company.
Uncontrolled Spending.
Have you looked at what your IT department is costing every month? You may be surprised at how much you’re spending, and yet, you are still unsure at how well your company’s data is protected. Unless someone within your company is monitoring your IT department, you might not even be aware of what they are doing.
Have they ensured that your data is backed up in a cloud or are they developing a new app that may or may not help your business grow? Is your firewall up to date? Are your employees well-informed on cybersecurity threats that come via email? An unsupervised IT department could be investing in hardware and software that doesn’t protect you or help grow your business.
Add in the cost of recurrent training to keep your employees up to date with the latest security threats and emerging technology, and your business could experience uncontrolled spending. Managed IT service companies offer different pricing modules so that you can pick the plan that best suits your company yet allows for growth.
Unsecured Network and Uncertain Data Back-Up.
No matter what type of business, your business is responsible for the secure storage of employee records, customer data or patient information, which is protected by HIPAA regulations. A cybersecurity breach has the potential to put your business out of business.
Besides employee and client information, your business has a considerable volume of transactional data and customer/patient history. Are you sure that your IT department could have you back up and running after a natural disaster, ransomware attack or network failure?
Speaking of natural disasters which seems to be happening more often and are more severe, do you have a disaster recovery plan? Has your IT department developed and implemented a disaster recovery plan? It’s not enough to have your data backed up to a cloud. Your business should have a plan of where you’d relocate and how you’d get back up and running again.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency estimates that 40 percent of the businesses hit by natural disasters do not reopen and 25 percent of those who do fail within the first year. The Small Business Administration found that 90 percent of businesses fail within the first two years after a disaster. Data loss is catastrophic when coupled with a natural disaster.
A managed IT services company will provide you with a disaster recovery plan that protects your data to help prevent business failure should a natural or man-made disaster occur. The recent Paradise, California fire is a prime example of what could happen to your business should the worst scenario happen. Could your business recover?
Qualified IT employees are in short supply.
According to the George Mason University School of Business, IT jobs have increased by 13 percent while graduates in IT have decreased by 11 percent. Recruiting and retaining qualified IT personnel is expensive and challenging.
If you contract for managed IT services, you don’t have to terminate your entire IT department. You might decide to have a managed IT services company oversee the complex jobs while allowing your in-house IT personnel to focus on new projects or new business initiatives instead of responding to IT crisis resolution.
Most likely, a managed IT service company is able to hire the most qualified IT professionals. Why not get these people to oversee the most complex parts of your business?
Timing of new technology purchases.
Your company could be operating with outdated technology that can’t be upgraded to new security and/or operating systems. Restoring data might become impossible with obsolete technology.
Personnel from managed IT services companies regularly attend the major technology shows and can easily spot potential problems in your existing technology systems that could create significant problems in the future.
A managed IT services company starts to work for you on the first day that you contract with them. They’ll evaluate your entire IT system and make recommendations for updates to ensure the best performance and longer operating cycle. An added plus is that your managed IT services company can recommend new products specific to your industry or business type.
Minimize risk.
Savvy businesses know that minimizing the risk of security breaches, ransomware threats and data loss is one of the best ways to ensure the continuity of the business. A managed IT services company is more than just an IT “guy” that someone recommended to you. They become a valued partner of your business ensuring that your files and data are protected and that you can focus on your business operation.

The Hidden Costs of Your Next Data Breach

by Felicien | Jan 11, 2019 | Education

Ask any small or medium-sized business owner and they’ll tell you the same thing: They’re terrified of a data breach. Sure, their fears might not exist on the same plane as, say, a Target or a Wells Fargo, but that doesn’t mean they’re not real and quantifiable.
The average numbers are pretty scary, in fact. According to MarketWatch, citing a study by IBM Security and Ponemon Institute, “the 2018 Cost of a Data Breach Study found that the average cost of a data breach globally is $3.86 million, a 6.4 percent increase from the 2017 report.”
That’s just the average, mind you. Things get much more frightening on a large scale: “the study also calculated the costs associated with ‘mega breaches’ ranging from 1 million to 50 million records lost, projecting that these breaches cost companies between $40 million and $350 million respectively.”
These numbers become even more heart-stopping when you consider that a data breach’s costs don’t end at the financial. There are some hidden costs of data breaches that you may not yet have considered. While no one likes to conjure more bogeymen than necessary (isn’t the world scary enough?), it’s critical to take data breach extremely seriously.
Here are seven of the most notable – and the most frightening – hidden costs of data breaches.
1. Loss of Intellectual Property
One of the most significant losses associated with a data breach is intellectual property. This can include:

Blueprints for setting up a factory
Specs for a project
Code for a piece of software or another product
Proposals for new products or services
Recipes for proprietary dishes or ingredients (think “secret sauce”)
The means of replicating patented products

If an attacker gets their hands on this information, you might suddenly have a competition where before you owned a niche. This is bound to decrease your profits and impinge upon your success.
2. Disruption of Operations
Data breaches cause a lot of panic and havoc, and unfortunately, this means suspending normal daily activities in favor of dealing with the crisis. This can put your standard timelines behind by days, weeks or even months … which is time and money you can’t get back.
3. Destruction of Property
We tend to think of data breaches as a one-way flow of information out of the formerly secure system. This includes client or customer information, intellectual property, company figures and documents, or other pieces of information customarily kept private.
However, some data breaches also include an element of cyber attack, information flowing in that is harmful to the system. Perhaps the attacker sends through the malicious code to damage it. They may also attempt to shut it down while withdrawing the data, with the intent of making it more difficult for the company to protect itself. In some cases, these attacks leave long-term damage behind, and it takes thousands or millions of dollars to pick up the pieces.
4. Loss of Customer Relationships
For obvious reasons, your customers aren’t going to be thrilled to learn that their credit card information, medical records or private purchase histories are now out in the world. While some may forgive you, especially if you take the right steps to fix the problem as soon as possible, others will not. The loss of their business can majorly cut into your margins.
You may even face canceled contracts. Money that was already factored into your budget on a monthly or yearly basis is now gone, and it will take time to replace it through new clients and customers.
5. Disrupted Vendor Relationships
It’s not just customers you have to worry about. Most people don’t want their names associated with an accident or leak that gets their end users in trouble. B2B companies still worry about what consumers will think, especially when they’re products are used as-is and branded. They may pull out as well, forcing you to find new vendors for your goods.
6. Disappearance of Important Information
Client and customer information is precious to your company. Not only do good records allow you to keep serving your important people well, but they also form a valuable basis for your business in the future. In addition to creating acrimony between yourself and your clients, losing that information can cost you considerably.
For instance, consider a breach of your customer relationship management (CRM) software. You keep a lot of valuable information inside that system, such as:

Customer details, including their personal information
Records of past interactions with clients or customers, such as medical history or purchases
Contacts made with the customer
The nature of contact made, such as phone or email
Financial information
Personal notes regarding the relationship you’ve forged with each client or customer

… and additional information that helps you to relate to your VIPs day in and day out. Starting from scratch does more than failing to impress them; it can ruin all the hard work you’ve put in so far.
7. Increased Cost of Loans
Data breaches, despite your best intentions, send the signal that your company can’t be trusted. Usually, we assume that it’s consumers whose good opinion we’ll lose, but banks and other lending companies also tend to become a little cold.
Post-data breach, it’s very likely that your company’s credit score will drop. The results of this vary:

You might have a harder time getting loans or extending lines of credit
You may have to pay higher interest rates when you do get loans
You might not be able to get loans at all

Any of the above may hamper your growth and limit your ability to produce new revenue, which can cost just as much in the end as losing money you’ve already made.
Bottom line? You can’t take data breach seriously enough, so if you haven’t yet done a risk assessment and put a security plan in place, make that a top priority right away. Otherwise, you’re a sitting duck just inviting breach and attack, and that’s no way to run a business.

How Can Managed Services Benefit Local Businesses?

by Felicien | Jan 11, 2019 | Education

Using Managed Services is really about smartly growing your local business, especially if that business relies on technology to any degree. A Managed Service Provider (MSP) is a third-party contractor that partners with your company to do exactly what its name suggests: It manages a service or services for you, usually in the area of IT. Most MSPs provide services for a fixed monthly amount, so there are no budgetary surprises involved.
Options Provided by Managed Services
As the MSP sector has grown and improved over the years, the choices available for local businesses have increased as well. Your company may need an MSP for only a single purpose — such as tech support for a shared wireless printer — or for a host of reasons. You will likely be able to find a Managed Services Provider that will offer a customized and affordable plan to meet your business needs. Here are a few of the options available.

Data storage
Onsite or offsite tech support
Backup & recovery services
VoIP phone services
Remote monitoring
Compliance services
Risk assessments
Monthly reports
Secure data centers
Private and/or public cloud services
And much more

Advantages of MSPs for Local Businesses
Outsourcing IT tasks to a Managed Services Provider can give local businesses access to state-of-the-art services without a significant investment of capital. A company with an upward trajectory may not be ready to hire its own full-time IT staff to manage these tasks. Most small business owners can imagine the potential headaches that are created by hiring a lone IT staffer; when that person gets sick or quits, it can be crippling in the short-term. With that in mind, here are some of the significant advantages that an MSP can offer a local business:

Improved Productivity: MSPs can improve productivity on both the technology side of your business and the human resources side. An MSP will reduce the overall expenses for a company, by avoiding the need for a full-time IT staff. Most MSPs also specialize in keeping technology upgraded when and where it needs to be done. For example, server upgrades may need to happen when data storage needs for your business increase. One of an MSP’s duties might be to monitor that situation and ensure the upgrade occurs before that point in time arrives, negating the need for downtime.
Freeing up Internal Resources: Many IT tasks are routine, mundane events — but they are vitally necessary for a business. These tasks can be morale-killers for full-time staffers who want to be working on the latest new project for the company. While these routine tasks are necessary, they are likely not the optimal way for your best employees to spend their time. Having an MSP carry out everyday tasks makes excellent sense from this perspective.
Improved Communication and Collaboration: Managed Services can provide the infrastructure needed for your employees to collaborate and communicate better. Downtime on projects can be reduced, for example, by having an MSP provide private cloud services combined with VoIP business phone services for your employees or even clients. Improved communications services can lead to faster production times and better product management.
Reduced IT Budget: This is one of the most significant advantages for local businesses when it comes to using a Managed Services Provider. As just one example, imagine the costs of maintaining your own on-site servers for business. This requires a full-time staffer to monitor and manage the servers; the servers take up physical space within your property, and it will even cause a significant bump in the monthly electric bill for your office. Utilizing an MSP makes excellent business sense because it frees up budgetary expenses that can be effectively managed for a fraction of the cost.
Added Stability and Scalability: You don’t have to worry about staffing turnover when you sign a contract with an MSP to handle IT services. An MSP lets you know that your business’ IT services are stable and continuous. Likewise, when your business is ready to scale up, you have two options: Have the business pay for added equipment, upgrades, staffing and more, or hire an MSP to do it for far less money. An MSP can allow you to dramatically reduce costs at the right time when you’re ready to expand.
Customized Plans: Many MSPs provide package deals that are based on the number of services required, the number of devices covered, the number of users on your network, or a combination of these factors. These are frequently offered in tiered versions so that smaller companies with fewer IT needs can still utilize the services. Many will also offer an “a la carte” pricing structure based on your individualized needs.

Utilizing a Managed Services Provider can give local business owners peace of mind by reducing costs and providing state-of-the-art services that they might not otherwise be able to afford. Most important of all, an MSP can allow you to maintain a sustainable business growth pattern without breaking the bank.