Integrating the right and up-to-date technology into your business allows small companies to stay competitive with large corporations. At this point, all businesses rely on technology to best serve and grow their customer base. As a small business owner, one of the largest risks involved with technology is failure rates. No system is perfect and a network crash or hardware issue can come with a tremendous price tag. Your IT infrastructure is what allows you to manage accounts, close sales online, ship timely and much more. A problem with that infrastructure will leave your business floundering, losing money until all systems are back online. A single emergency could eat up an entire year's worth of profits in just a couple of days. Follow these simple tips for keeping your IT support costs within budget.

Computer networks dramatically improve productivity, but they also come with their own issues. Networks require almost constant administration to ensure data integrity, access to data and security. Imagine the devastation if your company network went down for a few hours. You have almost certainly dealt with that in the past. What would happen if that down time extended from hours to days? The cost, in both immediate expenses and incidental losses, would be tremendous. Computer network support is all about planning for the worst and minimizing your financial risk at the same time. You need to take a look at your existing IT plan and think about the "what if's."

What If Your In-house IT Department Isn't Enough?

In most cases, no in-house IT department is enough to cover all four of the pillars of IT support: on-site, remote, end-user and emergency. This would require your small business to invest in several expert technicians, all of whom would need to agree to be on-call. The cost of your technology department would go through the roof. Assess your current support system for weaknesses and consider the benefits of an outsourced IT support plan. 

Static economic growth and increasing costs make productivity one of the single most important elements of staying competitive in today's market. Technology performs a crucial role in helping you improve your productivity. Computers, mobile technology and automated processes let your business do more with less. Keeping your technology functioning properly and at the cutting edge takes dedicated IT staff support. Given the variety of uses for technology today, IT support requires an entire departments worth of knowledge. Small business IT support must be affordable, and that does not work with an in-house IT department. Outsourcing your IT support helps minimize your downtime and improve the end user experience.

For most SMB’s, the computer network is the backbone of the company.  Since so much depends on the network’s health and integrity, putting together a good computer network support team is imperative. You can hire the whole team in-house; collaborate with a reputable Managed Service Provider (MSP), who can complement your in-house resources; or outsource your network support entirely to a MSP who can provide quality service—often at a fraction of the in-house cost.  Whichever option you choose, the qualities you need to keep your network functioning optimally remain the same:

A Managed Service Provider (MSP) can provide your company with cost-effective, reliable computer network support.  Here are 10 benefits to moving from an in-house to outsourced computer network support.