Outsourcing IT is something most Calgary organizations can benefit from. Finding and hiring internal IT personnel can be extremely difficult; it is a competitive field with rising salaries and high turnover. According to Canada’s labour statistics, there are more than 77,000 unfilled positions in the ICT sector. That forces the cost of labour higher and competing for the best talent becomes a costly and time-consuming endeavour. Supporting your existing IT department or outsourcing IT completely can remove the burden of attracting, paying, and retaining top talent. The cost savings from outsourcing IT is one of the biggest reasons organizations consider it in the first place.
What Is IT Outsourcing?
IT outsourcing allows an organization to benefit from the depth of expertise and established team of a managed service provider (MSP) without the cost of hiring an entire department. Partnering with a Calgary MSP gives your organization the opportunity to focus on building relationships with clients, developing business goals, and growth planning – all without worrying about monitoring your network, installing patches to software, or making sure servers are up and running. Outsourcing IT by partnering with a managed services partner is a proactive method of protecting your organization, your network, and your data.
Outsourced IT partners aren’t just break/fix technicians who respond to an emergency phone call when something goes wrong; instead, a managed services partner is working to ensure that nothing does go wrong by proactively managing your network. Break/fix technicians are not motivated to keep things up and running – they are paid by the hour, so every hour of repair labour is profit. MSPs work on a flat rate, so the better they are at keeping your systems up and running, the more cost effective it is for them to provide services; it’s in their benefit and yours that they work to keep systems up rather than react to problems after the fact. It’s a proven method for efficiency, business continuity, and better uptime.
How Does Outsourcing IT Work?
When you partner with a managed service provider to outsource your IT, the MSP gets to know your organization and its goals. In most cases, it begins with a business assessment. During the assessment, the MSP will evaluate your IT infrastructure to make sure it can meet the demands of your organization, identifying weak areas and security risks while prioritizing service needs. The right MSP brings a level of expertise and specialized knowledge about your industry to the table and build a relationship with you. The goal of outsourcing IT is to ensure you not only have better uptime and reliability with your clients and customers but that you have a partner in developing a comprehensive IT strategy that aligns with your organization’s goals, growth, and compliance requirements.
Why Outsourcing IT Services Saves Money and Time
Outsourcing IT saves your organization money and time. Because organizations pay a scalable flat rate, it makes IT costs a predictable – and therefore plannable – expense as you build your strategy to achieve your business goals. When you aren’t forced to invest unexpectedly in new equipment or repairs to existing equipment, because you have a partner handling all of it, your organization’s budget can be better targeted toward growth, marketing, client support, and sales – knowing the technology and security you need to stay operational will be there for you to rely on.
How to Manage IT Outsourcing
Managing your IT outsourcing shouldn’t feel like work. It should feel like you’re building a relationship with a company dedicated to understanding your needs, with the expertise to help you apply the right solutions to help you meet your goals. At The ITeam, we pride ourselves on our dedication to delivering comprehensive IT support that moves your business forward. We do this through our commitment to these core values:
- Service – We provide an exceptional client experience from start to finish
- Accountability – We do what we say we are going to do
- Teamwork – We are here for each other and for our clients
- Passion – We bring intense enthusiasm to the delivery of excellence
- Integrity – We are committed to doing the right thing
- Growth – We believe in the continual development of our people
- IT Outsourcing for Small Businesses in Calgary
Most organizations are operating on tighter budgets than ever and investing in in-house teams reduces the budget available for other areas. Outsourcing IT is a smart and strategic move for any Calgary organization.
Benefits of Outsourcing IT for Calgary Organizations
There are several benefits to organizations that outsource IT.
Reduce Costs
When you outsource to an organization whose sole business is managing IT, infrastructure, and cybersecurity, you get the benefit of their expertise. It’s more than just the flat rate cost; it’s the peace of mind of knowing you have the best people working to help keep your data safe – people who have their fingers on the pulse of the industry, hear about threats before anyone else, and respond swiftly to take action.
Enhanced Security
The level of threat against organizations of all size in all industries is growing at a rapid rate. It’s no longer enough to implement a firewall and virus program and call it a day. External – and internal – threats require a proactive, layered, and comprehensive approach.
Experts at the Ready
You get an entire team of dedicated specialists helping to ensure your network security, but as valuable is the access you have to a virtual CIO. Most companies can’t afford a full IT department, let alone a C-level officer. But part of your outsourced managed IT is access to your own dedicated virtual CIO who collaborates with you to align your IT strategy with your goals.
Scalability
Outsourcing your IT allows you to scale your services so that you can be more agile and responsive to the needs of your business and your clients. Whether you experience rapid growth or the occasional downturn, you can adjust your outsourced IT to adapt.
Local, Secure Cloud
One of the benefits of outsourcing IT is gaining access to secure hosting and colocation services. Our servers are right here in Calgary, so you know your data is safe, accessible, and secure. Managed hosting offers continuous and uninterrupted access for the end-user, optimizing content delivery eliminates downtime.
Need more information? We’re ready to help.
The ITeam is Calgary’s leading source for outsourced Managed IT support and cloud services. We have been both recognized among the world’s 501 most strategic and innovative managed service providers (MSPs) by Channel Futures and named one of the CDN Top 100 Solution Providers by Computer Dealer News (CDN). Additionally, The ITeam was recognized as a 2020 SMB Global Hot 100.
Contact us now without delay for a complimentary business assessment from one of our IT support professionals. Call (403) 750-2540 or email sales@theiteam.ca today.