What Is the Real Value of IT for Small Business?

It’s important that your business get as much value out of your technology as possible, but this is often easier said than done. There isn’t an easy answer to how you can get the most out of your technology. Even if you implement a brand-new solution, who’s to say that you don’t actually need it or use it? Cutting costs is more important now than it has ever been, and for small businesses hoping to save on IT support, there’s no time like the present to secure your business’s future.

This all starts by making IT profitable for your organization. In other words, you don’t want to waste assets on technology solutions. Instead, you want your technology to save you money, thus making it worth investing in. To find out if your technology is a waste or a benefit to your business, try asking yourself the following questions:

• What are some of the services you have that aren’t being utilized properly? Are you wasting time and assets on software or hardware that aren’t being utilized to their full extent?
• Do you replace hardware more frequently than you need to (or not often enough)? You could be risking hardware failure or general technology deficiency by not maintaining your technology.
• How much are you spending on technology that doesn’t offer a return on investment? While it’s one thing to pay for services that make your job easier, it’s another entirely to waste them on unnecessary assets that are either a luxury or simply don’t offer enough value to justify the expenditure.

To get started, ask yourself how your business’s technology is affecting its bottom line. If you implement a new solution, what is it offering for your organization? Are the funds best being spent, or would they be better delegated elsewhere? For example, if you spend some money on automation technologies for basic tasks, you can eliminate the need for important personnel to waste time that would be better spent on more important tasks.

Another common example is the use of break-fix strategies. Businesses are throwing money away trying to keep their technology in proper working order. Break-fix model for IT support puts up the facade of value by providing support in the moment you need it most. While this does get your business back in action, you still have to pay exorbitant fees for new hardware and downtime. You’re not preventing the incident outright, which is where most of the waste comes from. Instead of wasting time, assets, and resources on downtime caused by reacting to technology troubles, try taking a preventative approach instead.

The best way to find more value in your technological investments is to work with a managed service provider like Computerware. Basically, you can cut out the costs of hiring multiple IT technicians by outsourcing the work to us. This eliminates the costs of managing an IT department, adding new technicians to payroll, and most important of all, the upkeep of your systems. Instead, for a single monthly payment, you can invest in an outsourced IT department that can handle any and all responsibilities of an in-house team, plus some. Here are some of the services that we can offer your organization:

• Remote monitoring and management
• Backup and disaster recovery
• Network security
• Email management
• And more!

To learn more about how IT outsourcing can help your business, reach out to Computerware at (703) 821-8200.