Managed IT support can transform the way your company does business, giving you greater flexibility and security, and automating many of the routine tasks that tie up the time of your team on a day-to-day basis. Your small business can benefit from dedicated IT support in a number of ways, even if your IT needs are basic. Here are just a few of the reasons to outsource your IT support, rather than try and make do in-house.

Spotting risks

Larger companies may have the time and resources to run on-site risk assessments – in fact, many have dedicated IT teams trained in just that. However, a small business isn’t usually equipped to spot or mitigate all the risks to IT hardware, software, and data storage systems. Unfortunately, these blind spots leave you open to all manner of potential problems. An outsourced IT support company can take care of this for you, saving you time, money and frustration, as well as lowering your overall risk level. We’ll spot potential loopholes and problems in your existing systems, and patch them up – before it’s too late.

Preventing downtime

If part – or all – of your IT systems collapse, then you’re in trouble. Unscheduled downtime will see you desperately trying to organise things offline, a problem made even worse for teams working wholly or partially in remote locations during the pandemic. IT problems can be stressful and expensive. Worse than that, downtime can cost you more than money. You might find that customer confidence drops when downtime or a cyber-attack occurs, especially if a data breach or loss is involved. Ultimately, a small IT problem can lead to huge consequences down the line.

Third party managed IT support can help stop this. You have two options here: get in touch with an IT support company like F1 Support reactively when something goes wrong – i.e. when you’re already suffering downtime – or opt for prevention, rather than cure. An ongoing contract with an IT support company can stop problems before they happen. You may not have anyone in-house equipped to identify potential issues in the system. Don’t worry – we do, and we’re ready to spring into action.

Trusting experts

Your small business may not have the resources to hire an IT expert, let alone an entire department. This is common and is not usually a problem, but often leads to relying on workers to take care of their own IT – or nominating an office “expert” who is, in reality, anything but.

This is bad for productivity. After all, your team members are not IT experts but they are specialists in other fields; every minute they spend trying to solve computer problems is a minute that could be used elsewhere.

What’s more, this means that your entire system may not be as efficient as it could be. You might be working with outdated software, slow hardware, or a piecemeal system that has been patched together over the years.

By contracting an IT support company, you can improve this. Rather than relying on old systems, and forcing your workers into jobs that they are not prepared for, you’ll have experts at the end of the phone who can proactively advise you on the best way to maintain and improve your systems and IT procedures. This can transform your productivity, efficiency, profitability, and worker morale.

IT insurance

You can think of outsourced IT support as being a form of insurance, but in practice it’s more than this. If you’re lucky, no problems will occur. However, it only takes one small issue and your entire system could fall apart. This can have disastrous consequences for your business. Even if you never experience so much as a slow laptop or software crash, working with an IT support company can boost productivity and save time by ensuring your major software systems are updated, and that your data is backed up and secure.

Find out more

Interested in learning more? Contact F1 Support today for a no-obligation chat, and find out how our flexible services can help your business.