While most large corporations have their own in-house IT departments, small businesses usually don’t have a large enough IT infrastructure to require a full time support team.
On the surface it may seem that the small business benefits from lower overheads by not paying ongoing salaries to highly trained IT experts, but consider that UK private sector employees waste an average of 1 day every month due to IT problems. This costs the economy an astounding £35 billion per year and has a severe impact on productivity.
How Outsourcing Can Help
By choosing a local IT contractor, you ensure that the support you need is only a phone call away, regardless of whether the problem is hardware or software related. By outsourcing your IT support requirements, you can:
- Save Money
Protect your productivity whilst saving money at the same time. A dedicated in-house professional would cost between £26k and £40k per annum depending on experience. These figures do not include additional costs such as sick pay, employer national insurance contributions, and holiday pay.
- Access Expertise on an “As Needed” Basis
Outsourcing is particularly cost effective because you only pay for the services you use. This gives you the best of both worlds, your company benefits from increased productivity whilst avoiding the inherent costs associated with retaining a full time in house IT Support team.
- Access an Expansive Skill Set
IT Support is an ever expanding field that becomes larger and larger as new technologies are released. By outsourcing your IT support you avoid the ongoing expenses related to training or taking on additional staff who possess the required skill set.
- 24/7 Support 365 Days a Year
In order to obtain the same 24/7 365 coverage that many IT Support outsourcing specialists offer from an in house IT Support team, you would need to employ a minimum of 4 fully qualified professionals, more if you wanted to allow for holidays and sick days.
- Effortless Scalability
Being able to quickly scale your operation up and down is often key to success in the modern business world. With outsourcing, additional manpower is only ever an email or phone call away. There are no recruitment agency fees to pay, and no lengthy recruitment process. Your business can rapidly deploy the required manpower for task such as network expansions and server configuration.
- IT Security
With constantly evolving digital threats from hackers, viruses, malware and phishing attacks, it’s imperative to take a proactive stance regarding your companies IT security. Your outsourced IT support provider will be able to remotely monitor your systems, and make your entire infrastructure more secure. You may even be able to save money on the best antivirus and malware protection programs by purchasing from your IT support partner.
- Benefit from the Latest Technologies
Companies like Excalibur IT Support have a wide range of partnerships and accreditations with global technology powerhouses such as Microsoft, Dell, Adobe, Cisco, Dell, and Norton. These partnerships are effective conduits through which you can learn about new technologies and often save money.