What to Expect from your IT Support Provider / IT Support Partner (Part 2)
What to Expect from your IT Support Provider / IT Support Partner (Part 2)
In part two, we discuss the different services your IT Support Partner should offer alongside their support and monitoring services. Your IT Support Provider should already know the ins and outs of your IT infrastructure. They should know the number of, the equipment used, your network, WAN connection, internet and file sharing service details. Therefore, why not consider an IT Support Provider who can also offer full end-to-end services? This ‘one-stop-shop’ gives you one contact, one account manager, one provider and full peace of mind. If something goes wrong outside of your normal everyday IT glitches you have someone on hand to resolve the issue. That is without even considering the importance of future proofing.
Finding the right IT specialists for a planned or non-planned project can be an effortful process. Finding the service provider that compliments your team can likely be a challenge. It takes time to research to find the company that provides the services you need. You must:
1: ensure they have the correct expertise
2: explain to them what it is you are looking for whether in a face to face meeting or call
3: go through the proposal and quote gathering stage.
When it is an emergency situation, this may be taking up valuable time which you do not have.
However, if you knew your IT support provider already had the necessary skills and expertise, why not consider engaging them? They already know your IT infrastructure; you work collaboratively with your account manager on a resolution and they get started quickly. This doesn’t even consider the fact that they are already your support provider and can continue to monitor throughout as well as afterwards without any gap in service while new auditing is carried out.
Future Proofing
Your IT support providers main job is to keep an eye on your IT infrastructure. They ensure smooth day to day running and highlight and resolve any issues observed. However, a true IT support provider will not only be monitoring the current setup but also looking for areas for general changes required whether due to advances in equipment available or to keep in line with business development. Your IT support provider needs to be able to expand with you as your business grows and/or changes direction. Both an internal and outsourced IT team should be working collaboratively to keep the IT running smoothly with minimal to no service disruption. Therefore, if both teams have been working cohesively maintaining the status quo, as demands grow, this open and working collaboration will come into its own when more challenging circumstances arise.
Even if you have an internal IT team, the specialist skill set of an outsourced IT Service Provider will compliment your business. For example, if your staff are outgrowing their current office and you need to move to a larger space, your IT Support Provider would already have a complete log of all IT components, know your service offering and can advise and offer loan services for additional components required prior to the office relocation, do all communication required with other vendors throughout, install the new work site whilst constantly supporting and monitoring and preparing a business continuity plan.
What happens when there is a power failure? How do you access your data? When a power failure occurs there is the usual scramble to extract all data from other sources. However, your IT Support Provider should be able to prepare for such an event. Your IT Support team can prepare real-time backups, seamless offsite data storage either in data centre or in the cloud and multi-year archiving. Businesses need to consider the importance of implementing disaster recovery strategies and your IT Support Provider can advise and perform the strategies to ensure minimal downtime as well as enhancing your business’ operating efficiency.
Look out for the third part for the service level and communication you should expect from your IT Support Provider.
