Outsource IT to Focus on Business Growth
Focus on Your Business with an Outsourced IT Team
As a small, growing business owner, you've likely felt the distracting pull of responsibilities like payroll, compliance, and IT. These are important for keeping your business running smoothly, but can ultimately distract from growth.
Outsourced IT providers help you focus on growing your business by managing the IT lifecycle for you and your team. This can range from simple device management for startups to more complex areas like security policies or single sign-on as your team scales.
Why Consider Outsourced IT?
For many new business owners, outsourcing the operations of the company doesn’t feel natural. You’ve built the business and had to figure out how to be as cost-effective as possible. Most owners see outsourcing as a strategic move to focus on higher margin activities, reduce headache, or improve security.
Cost-Effectiveness
Partnering with an external IT team can save you the overhead costs of maintaining an in-house IT department, such as salaries, benefits, training, and equipment. Additionally, a predictable monthly fee structure can help you budget effectively and avoid unexpected IT emergency costs. This allows small, growing businesses to allocate resources to other crucial areas.
Access to Expertise
Companies specializing in IT outsourcing services understand which providers are best suited to your specific needs. They also continually review tools to stay informed about the benefits of new technologies like AI.
The right service providers will have streamlined, plug-and-play systems. You’re not just accessing their expertise for specific problems, but to solve the entire IT lifecycle.
Scalability and Flexibility
It's difficult for a growing business to predict IT needs 12 months in advance. Hiring an internal IT team member creates a dedicated IT headcount, even if there isn't always enough work. Conversely, continued growth may require hiring multiple team members.
With the right IT partner, you can scale your requests based on demand. Per-seat or per-device pricing also provides a built-in cost-saving mechanism when there's no onboarding.
Focus on Core Business
Growing teams often have their Engineering or Operations teams handle IT. The drawback is that this disrupts their daily work, which is especially harmful during periods of growth. Even if onboarding isn't an issue, IT requests can take time away from other valuable initiatives.
Extended Support and Monitoring
For smaller companies, they often lack coverage outside of normal working hours. This is true even with an in-house IT team. With an outsourced IT partner, you have options for 24/7 support and monitoring.
How to Outsource your IT Effectively
Even for seasoned purchasers the IT service provider procurement isn’t an everyday activity. Taking the time to do it right will save time, money, and a lot of headache in the long run.
Start small and scale up
Before starting an engagement with an IT Service Provider, identify your biggest need. Is it device management? Is it security with Single Sign On? Or something else? Search for an IT Service Provider who offers that service to test out the relationship with them. Scale up to other services once you’ve validated that they deliver to your expectations.
Starting small has three significant benefits. First, you won’t have to invest significant money upfront. Second, every dollar counts for small companies, so starting small will help you make the most of your investment because implementation will be focused on your greatest need. Third, implementing one service at a time allows you and the Provider to focus on quality, which will make the likelihood of success go up.
Once you’ve validated the partnership and the quality of the IT provider’s offerings, it’s easy to further scale to other offerings or with additional team members.
Research different providers
An IT service provider will be an extension of your team so the evaluation process of which vendor to work with is a lot like interviewing a potential candidate. You’re assessing them for their quality of services, but also for the culture fit with you and your business.
Ultimately, outsourcing IT services offers small and growing businesses a strategic advantage by providing cost-effective solutions, access to expert knowledge, scalability, and the ability to focus on core business operations. By carefully selecting and gradually scaling services with the right IT partner, businesses can ensure their technology needs are met while maximizing resources and minimizing distractions.
🎥 Watch the full video: Outsource IT for Startups: Save Time, Cut Costs, Stay Secure (YouTube)
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