Life is full of existential dilemmas, like knowing if you’ve found your soulmate. Or when your business might benefit from a co-managed service provider.
Okay, maybe recognizing the right time for IT help isn’t as deep as who to spend the rest of your life with.
But it’s still a thorny question. One that can break your business or propel it into the future.
So, today, we’ll look at five tell-tale signs that your business is ripe for getting co-managed IT services.
Sign #1: Increasing IT complexity
Almost any business trying to scale up is going to face this one. It almost goes without saying.
Almost.
That’s because all you may see are the hassles of dealing with multiple servers, networks, and software applications.
But deeper problems are lurking beneath the surface.
The first is lost productivity. A 2020 study found that employees lost an average of 28 minutes every time they had an IT-related issue.
Ironically, most of those go unreported. This is because most internal in-house IT teams are stretched thin, so employees don’t bother to call in for help. They either try to find a workaround or let the problem fester until it can no longer be ignored.
By that time, countless dollars and time have been lost.
The second issue is lost opportunity. Employees with ideas they’d like to accomplish hesitate because they don’t feel they have the know-how to push their ideas on the technology side. And they know the internal IT team usually struggles to keep up with all the other demands.
So, there’s no bandwidth for potential revenue-generating ideas.
Sign #2: Need for specialized skills
The torrid pace of technological change has led to a skill deficit in the IT field. Specialized skills such as cybersecurity, artificial intelligence, and IT architecture planning are getting more challenging to find with in-house IT teams.
Part of the problem is that most internal teams are stretched thin, forced to be jack-of-all-trades to keep up with increasing end-user demands. But that approach leaves little time for diving deeper into learning new skills.
However, that’s exactly what most employers need.
According to a 2021 Enterprise Strategy Group survey, employers need the most help with growing cybersecurity threats. This is especially true for small to mid-sized businesses.
Hackers know this, too. They know this makes these kinds of businesses very soft targets.
Co-managed IT services can alleviate some of this problem. Employers can often find providers with specialized skills, especially cybersecurity.
Or, they can bring in a service provider to help with more mundane tasks while they invest in training for their in-house IT team.
Sign #3: Struggling with security and updates
Even more than the previous sign, this one is driven by hackers. Their constant search for vulnerabilities in software and hardware makes updates and patches a fact of life.
Unfortunately, the time-to-cost tradeoff is high, too. Instead of helping with innovations that drive growth, IT teams get caught in the security rat race.
It also keeps your IT team from getting professional development that could help your business meet its goals.
This time suck can be reduced or eliminated by finding the right co-managed service provider. Like the previous sign, you can farm out the more straightforward tasks to a provider, freeing your IT team for more lucrative ventures.
Or, if the security need is specialized, it may be more cost-effective to bring in a provider with the requisite skills instead of paying for training.
Sign #4: Downtime and Outages
We’ve all heard the horror stories of small businesses experiencing network issues that disrupt everything from outside sales to internal processes.
Almost overnight, the company’s finances, reputation, and morale plummeted. The owners have to scramble to rectify the social media fallout. They also have to dip into savings to cover lost sales.
If any of this hits close to home (or gives you hives thinking about it), co-managed services might be in order.
A good provider will learn everything possible about internal and external systems that could create expensive and reputation-damaging downtime. They’ll use that knowledge to be proactive and prevent downtime from occurring.
But if it does, they can get your network back up quicker than an overwhelmed in-house IT team.
Sign #5: Scaling Challenges
So, maybe you plan to grow your business exponentially over the next few years. Or maybe it just happened organically.
Either way, congratulations. But hang on for a wild ride.
Scaling tech to match your company’s growth is easily one of the most difficult parts of business. Grow too slowly, and you risk the consequences of all the previously mentioned signs.
Grow too fast, and you burn precious time and cash on human resource costs, training, and payroll.
And this area is really where co-managed services shine. They offer the flexibility of adding, subtracting, and changing IT personnel to meet dynamic needs.
Best of all, they eliminate the time needed to find, screen, onboard, and train new hires.
Putting it all together
Technology is changing at a more rapid pace than at any time in human history. The advent of Artificial Intelligence, coupled with more sophisticated hackers, has made it more difficult to build and maintain IT teams.
So, finding a good, co-managed service provider that can integrate seamlessly into your business is not only an asset, it’s almost a necessity.
So, if you’re recognizing (or just worrying about) the signs in this blog, now is the time to start looking for a good provider.
The EDC Way
At EDC, we’re constantly evolving our approach to new challenges. That’s how we prevent problems from happening before they start. Our dedicated team of IT professionals is here to help you.
From strategizing a plan to providing multiple lines of defense against hackers, we will ensure your data and private information is safe behind a vanguard of security measures.
To learn more about EDC visit EDCNOW.com, or to schedule a free consultation on how we can help with your IT needs, call us at: 337.235.7741 in Lafayette or 504.322.3622 in New Orleans
