How to Choose an IT Support Company
There’s a lot of uncertainty for organizations across the country at the moment, and for Greater Vancouver businesses this is certainly no exception. It’s during these unpredictable times that companies look to outside IT support to ensure that they can maintain their digital transformation (DT) goals. After all, DT is the only tenable path of success as traditional models have proven to be unsustainable amidst a number of modern challenges and crises. But knowing how to choose an IT support company is not as clear as the demand to find one. Today, SAV Technology is here with a practical guide to vetting ones best suited to your needs.
5 Important Things to Look for When Choosing an IT Support Provider
1. Offers Managed Services (more than IT support)
While most small to medium business (SMBs) and enterprises (SMEs) look at their needs in terms of IT support, there’s a good chance that you’re actually looking for more than IT support in a traditional sense. What you most likely need, are Managed Services. What’s the difference?
Traditional IT support as you may know it is steeped in the “fix what’s broken” concept, and is typically reactive in nature. Essentially, if something isn’t working right in your tech environment, you need to be able to notify a help desk and wait for the problem to be resolved. While a Managed Services Provider (MSP) absolutely provides for this need, an MSP offers so much more. An MSP is “always on” and working in the background help prevent possible disruptions while also focusing on a number of your IT driven business goals. When you secure an MSP you are able to leverage a pool of technicians with expertise in the applications that support your business operations.
If you’re looking for more than someone to “fix problems” in the tech environment, but also help you improve productivity, assist with IT project management, and capitalize on competitive opportunities then you’re looking for a Managed Services Provider. Learn more about SAV Technology Managed Services.
2. Are Cloud Specialists
All modern IT companies have cloud expertise, but that expertise is often limited to the management of cloud-based applications and public cloud infrastructure (i.e. AWS, etc). While your cloud needs may currently be appropriate to the public environment, this may not always be the case, especially if your DT leads to company growth. This is why you need to partner with an IT firm that has expertise in public, hybrid, and private cloud servers alike. If you need IT support from a firm that offers access to a more scalable and secure cloud solution you’ll find that SAV cloud servers are a perfect fit.
3. Has Partnerships with Hardware and Software Providers
You need to leverage hardware and software as a service (SaaS) applications to accomplish your IT goals. But choosing the right fit for your company without expertise in these tools is a challenge to say the least. What typically happens is that a business subscribes to IT products and services directly and takes on a cost much greater than their IT budget allows – and for tools that may not be best suited to their needs. For this reason you must ensure your IT support company has longstanding partnerships with hardware and SaaS solution providers. This opens up access to tools with enterprise capabilities without necessarily taking on enterprise costs. At the very least qualified IT support candidates must have partnerships with (and expertise in) Microsoft (Office 365) and Google (G Suite). In addition, they must be able to prove relationships with providers of industry leading cloud networking products, hardware and infrastructure, virtualization platforms, communications networks, and a variety of cloud services. Essentially, your IT firm’s partnerships portfolio should look like this.
4. Places Security First
Cybersecurity is the top concern for most businesses in 2020. When you look for IT support (as you define it) you want to know that your provider will work to secure your company against advanced threats. This provider should be able to provide you with access to tools that leverage artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning that will uncover IT vulnerabilities and mitigate the risk of malware intrusion in addition to phishing schemes and other malicious disruptions in the IT environment. Verify that any given IT support provider places security-first and ensures that secure practices are the cornerstone of their solutions. Also take note that cybercrime preparedness is just one component of IT risk, and that your IT provider is also an expert in disaster recovery.
5. Quick and Easy Emergency IT Support
Last but not least is IT support by its true definition. In the end you need peace of mind your IT support provider will be there to answer your literal call should any issue arise. An IT concern can cause panic, so the support request process should not be complicated or the person reporting the issue on your company’s behalf will quickly become frustrated. With SAV Technology, all you need to do is call toll-free to 1-855-SAV-TECH or complete this brief form for an expedient response.
From the corporate world perspective IT support is an extremely broad term and is often thought of as assistance for any technology-related products and services. We’re not here to bog you down with what is and isn’t actually considered to be “IT support”. In the end, it’s how YOU define it, and no matter what your IT needs may be SAV Technology is here to provide that support, in all capacities. Contact us today to discuss.