Outsourced IT Support – What are the benefits?

IT support is being outsourced by more and more companies as time goes on. Startups aren’t bothering to create support roles anymore since they are directly outsourcing services, while companies that already have in-house IT support are looking at ways to switch to outsourcing. It might seem counter-intuitive to some to have IT support outsources – why would companies outsource support when they might need support instantaneously? The answer is simple – because it results in better IT support. Even a cursory glance at the way businesses operate in the real world will make it apparent that outsourcing is the way to go when it comes to IT support.

Better Coverage

IT support Chicago, Washington, New York, San Francisco providers, can offer much better coverage than in-house IT support. This is because the whole “modus operandi” of the providers is to deliver support and they are staffed accordingly. It is economically unfeasible for small to medium sized companies to have full monitoring 24 hours a day, 7 days a week but not when outsources. The truth about monitoring is that most of it is automated but you need someone keeping a watch so they can take action when needed. The experts at the IT support companies can easily monitor multiple companies and respond to any threats or problems immediately.

Lowered Costs

Outsourcing IT support results in huge cost savings. It is expensive to hire and train people just for IT support. If a company needs full coverage then the cost is astronomically high. Odds are there will be people sitting all day monitoring and waiting to be called within the office. Running a 24 hours shift means you will need, at the minimum, four people just for IT support. IT support providers are able to provide support at a much lower cost while providing lower services. Their staff is available to you whenever needed and you end up paying for only what you use.

Higher Efficiency

Outsourcing means better results because the person providing support treats your company as a client. The staff at IT support companies is trained specifically to solve problems as quickly as possible. It is not possible for small and medium sized companies to provide this level of training to their employees simply because they cannot afford to focus on IT support efficiency since it isn’t their main business. Outsourced support will be able to solve your problems quicker because they spend their whole day solving problems; when they see a device or system acting up, they know why it is acting up because they have seem similar devices and systems at a hundred other companies.

Unmatched expertise

IT support providers can afford to hire experts and specialists for all types of systems. This means that these providers have networking experts, software experts, hardware experts, operating system experts, and more. This sort of specialization is impossible for small to medium companies because it would require hiring 15 people just for IT support. You’ll be surprised at how quickly problems get solved once you outsource IT support – the reason they get fixed quickly is because the person fixing the problem is an expert in the system the problem occurred in. It is unreasonable for a company to think that an in-house support employee will be able to become the master of all the different types of networks, operating systems, and hardware in use. With support providers it is a given fact that there will be experts on-board available whenever you need them.  Simply ask service providers what experts they have available on call and you will be impressed.

Flexibility

When you outsource support services you have the option of having a flexible team. This means that if you only need one person for IT support, you will have just 1 person, but if any project or task comes in that required 10, 20, or more people it isn’t an issue. Support providers always have staff available for you on a flexible basis; you can increase or decrease the size of your team while only paying for what you need. Big IT support teams are required when updating systems or moving to a new location. Imagine doing a similar task with an in-house team and the problems start popping up. How can you hire more people just for a few weeks or months? What sort of benefits will these temporary employees get? How much will they cost the company? All these problems go away when working with outsourced IT.