Preferred Blog

It’s a fact that most businesses today are rolling out technology as a part of their strategic plan to improve productivity and make their business more efficient. The more technology your organization relies on, the more crucial it is to get comprehensive IT support for that IT.

How much money does your business waste on managing its technology solutions? You might be surprised by the answer to this question. Depending on the way that your organization takes advantage of technology, you’ll have different needs than other businesses, but no matter what kind of organization you manage, it’s critical that you try to get the best return on investment for your solutions.

Does your business have trouble with managing and maintaining your technology? If so, you’re not alone. Many small businesses struggle with even the most basic elements of IT maintenance. Wouldn’t it be nice if you could just take this responsibility and shift it off of your employees? The best way to approach technology maintenance is to implement managed IT services.

How does your organization manage its mission-critical technology solutions? We know that most small businesses have some sort of trouble with this topic, either due to budget constraints or a lack of personnel. Either way, we know that there is a better way to manage your business’ technology, and it’s all thanks to an approach called managed IT services.

Technology maintenance and management is one of the major pain points of all businesses, but it comes more easily to large organizations that have large budgets. Unfortunately, small organizations are often left out, placing such an important aspect of managing their business on the back burner. How, then, can you take advantage of proactive IT maintenance without breaking your budget?

Fundamentally, business is simple: if you take in more revenue than you have expenses, your company is a success. There are just so many elements to manage to ensure that revenues outpace expenses that it becomes difficult to ascertain what you can do to cut costs and see a higher degree of profitability for your efforts.

In the natural course of doing business, an owner/operator will have to face many difficult situations, but none of these situations are as difficult as asking them to determine whether or not to close the doors of the business for good. Many problems could cause a business to fail, but it has to hurt the failing owner a little more when the solution for the problem was not only within his/her reach, it was affordable.

As a business owner, you have plenty to worry about, and your technology doesn’t do you any favors. It’s difficult to oversee the responsibilities of managing technology like workstations, server units, and mobile devices, alongside the ordinary demands of your job. What a lot of organizations don’t realize is that they can improve operations and make their jobs easier by outsourcing the responsibility of technology management to IT professionals.

Too many businesses suffer due to issues with their information technology. The IT department, that is supposed to be innovating, is just too swamped down solving immediate technical problems to do so. However, if left unchecked, having an IT management deficit could swiftly create larger problems throughout your organization.

When was the last time that your organization had an unexpected technology expense blast your IT budget out of the sky? Surprise issues that you don’t plan for could potentially derail your budget for months, or even years, depending on the severity of it. Having a clear idea of what your IT service plan covers is a great way to make sure that you don’t get hit by surprise billing.

Managed IT services are so popular with small businesses that they’re becoming a commodity. If you’re not taking advantage of managed IT, what’s your excuse? Here we address three common excuses put forth by companies that avoid managed IT.

“I’ll save money by only fixing technology when it’s broken.”
At first glance, this seems to make sense. By only performing maintenance on your devices when they aren’t operating as intended, you should be able to save money in the long run. The only problem here is that technology by nature requires that you perform maintenance on it regularly in order to maintain optimal performance. If you aren’t providing the care that it needs, you’re holding your business back from achieving its maximum potential.

Then you have to consider the fact that technology is much more expensive to replace outright than it is to perform routine maintenance on. Think about it; a server unit is very, very expensive, and so are good, quality workstations. If you’re going to purchase hardware, wouldn’t it make sense to perform maintenance on it and guarantee a long life, rather than await a premature hardware failure? Managed IT seeks to provide this care throughout the lifetime of your technology to ensure its longevity and proper functionality.

“My technology doesn’t need maintenance regularly.”
Some businesses are under the impression that they don’t use their technology enough to justify regular maintenance routines. This may be because they only use their office productivity suite, the Internet, and not much else. If technology systems don’t receive regular maintenance (like patches and updates), security can quickly become a problem. Also, when you don’t experience a targeted hacking attack, it can be easy to fall into a false sense of security.

Then there’s the problem that comes from having Internet-connected hardware like servers and workstations. Most businesses will be using their technology solutions to browse the Internet and conduct business with email and other communications which could potentially result in a data breach. Do your employees know how to identify phishing scams and other online malicious activity? While most organizations use security solutions like firewalls and antivirus, consumer-grade is often not enough to protect sensitive data from hackers and data breaches.

“My employees and I can handle IT all by ourselves.”
Here’s one of the biggest reasons why companies don’t implement managed IT services; they feel that they can do a fine-enough job managing their own technology. This is fine if companies have an internal IT department, but it’s more likely that small businesses are relying on their own employees to perform troubleshooting procedures and basic tech maintenance to save money.

Ask yourself this question: “Would I rather have skilled technicians working with my technology, or my busy employees, who have other duties and obligations?” More likely than not, you’ll want your team to focus on their responsibilities within your organization, rather than wasting time with your business’s technology. Managed IT allows your team to take a step back and focus on what matters most: your business.

So, what do you think? Would you be willing to reconsider your approach to IT maintenance? If so, reach out to us at 708-781-7110.

Business owners expect a lot out of their IT network, and rightfully so. However, technology isn’t perfect and can sometimes get in the way of these expectations. To overcome these technology shortcomings, IT administrators and business owners can benefit by outsourcing these expectations, especially when it comes to these three crucial aspects of IT.

IT Maintenances
IT administrators are often given lofty goals to improve the overall performance of their company’s network and infrastructure. Yet it can be a struggle for them to actually get around to achieving these goals if they’re tied down with routine IT maintenance, like applying security patches and upgrading software. What’s worse, when your IT department is stretched thin, their work suffers, fatigue can set in, and morale can deteriorate.

How Preferred Can Help
When Preferred co-manages your IT, we work with your current IT staff to take care of the routine maintenances that are often responsible for tying them down. The beauty of this approach is that we’re able to take care of these maintenances remotely. Essentially, we work behind the scenes so that your IT staff can have the support they need and be the rock stars you hired them to be.

IT Budget
In the same way that it’s impossible to squeeze blood out of a turnip, an IT administrator can’t implement the solutions they need if the money just isn’t there. For those tasked with overseeing technology, working with a budget passed on to them by their employer is often a major source of frustration. After all, they’re trained to work with technology, not spreadsheets.

How Preferred Can Help
Preferred’s managed approach to IT actually frees up money for IT budgets. By taking IT expenses that would normally be categorized as a capital expense and turning them into an operating expense, money will be freed up in the capital column. This means that your IT department will end up with more money to spend on the equipment they need to do their jobs and meet your expectations.

Security Breaches
Nothing can derail an IT objective quite like a security breach, hack attack, or computer virus. The worst thing about security breaches is that they always seem to happen at the worst possible time, like when progress is being made on an important IT project, or when you’re up against a deadline. Anybody who’s ever dealt with a security breach knows firsthand how frustrating it can be to resolve.

How Preferred Can Help
When it comes to protecting your company’s data, you can benefit from having an extra set of eyes. Even if you already have an IT department in place, they would benefit from incorporating Preferred’s assistance, expertise, and security solutions. One way that we can help is by remotely monitoring your company’s network for any inconsistencies and fishy behavior. This is a surefire way to catch a security threat before it breaches your network and does any damage.

To have a conversation about how we can help meet your expectations and IT goals, pick up the phone and call 708-781-7110.

Technology’s incredible growth has brought about a need for technicians who are skilled enough to handle everyday maintenance. As time passes, technology grows more complex, and as such it requires more comprehensive maintenance. Eventually, innovators in the IT industry discovered that their services could be improved by preventing technology problems from happening in the first place. Enter: managed IT services.

Every organization has mission-critical systems that they rely on in order to function, and the IT technician is responsible for keeping them running. Modern technology and best practices have given rise to a new way of managing business technology, one that knocks the traditional break-fix IT out of the water.