An IT Support Blog from London

IT outsourcing often wins the debate between in-house IT or outsourcing technology requirements to an IT support company, businesses commonly opt for the latter because outsourcing reduces costs, draws in more expertise, and allows businesses to focus on core competencies.

Sometimes, however, companies decide to take IT back in-house or do not consider outsourcing. A few horror stories or a bad outsourcing experience can often sour the mood around outsourced IT. Like a lot of things in business and technology, getting the most out of IT outsourcing – and avoiding the horror stories – just involves a degree of awareness and the right steps.

London-based companies whose business processes depend greatly on IT systems need to have an IT support team (or, for small businesses, a one-man team) that can keep those systems in excellent condition. With the right IT support, London companies can maintain a smooth business flow.

Employing an IT team is one option, but businesses can also hire an IT support company to manage and maintain those IT systems on their behalf. This second option will actually improve overall business flow. Allow us to explain why.

Technology is so central to the operations of any organisation of size that, irrespective of field of business, technology has the ability to either drive or impede growth.

For this reason, a continued close match between your business and your IT support company is essential to growing your business. Your support provider must grow, scale, and respond with your organisation.

But how do you know whether the IT outsourcing provider you are currently using can grow alongside your business? We think these are the seven key capabilities you should identify.

Data breaches can be very costly. Costs can include the usual financial consequences such as response and remediation, customer breach notification, litigation expenses, and regulatory fines, but can also include less obvious consequences such as the cost of business disruptions, loss of customer trust, and higher insurance premiums.

Clearly, it’s imperative for businesses to find ways to avoid a data breach, and here is how it can be done.

Information technology is important to a business. In fact, it’s easy to argue that the importance of IT is growing. Leaders are recognising this, Spiceworks’ 2020 State of IT report found that 44% of businesses are planning to grow IT expenditure in 2020, compared to 38% in 2019.

Merely throwing cash at IT is not enough, however. When evaluating options for IT support, London companies much seek out the right IT partner – a partner that can support your business in times of difficulty, and a partner that helps your business make the most of its technology investments.

In this article, we present five core areas you should look at when evaluating your existing IT support partner, or as you choose your next technology support partner.

Start-ups and small businesses are often highly cost-conscious, with a can-do attitude that usually sees the founders becoming involved in a range of non-core activities – including in supporting the IT that helps businesses tick over.

However, as a business grows, owner-managers must realise that it’s impossible to personally service every business requirement, and that experts in their respective fields, such as IT, can deliver so much more.

In this article, we outline how taking steps to outsource IT support can help you grow your business more quickly and more sustainably. Read on to find out why outsourced IT support is an essential step for growing businesses.

Technology is central to your business, but your business may not necessarily be in the business of technology. That’s why you rely on an IT support company to conduct the day to day maintenance of the tech that supports your business.

Over time, however, there may come a need for a change in support providers. Your business may grow, presenting increasingly complex technology needs that your existing supplier cannot cope with. Or, your support company may simply drop the ball too frequently.

What are the signs that your company should consider switching, and how should you go about making this switch? Read on to find out!

Cloud solutions have revolutionised the IT industry because they offer a lot of advantages over locally-hosted computing infrastructures. Therefore, it is no surprise that businesses have evolved their systems to allow them to migrate to a cloud environment.

A cloud-based strategy is far from perfect, however. All cloud computing vendors have, at some point failed, experienced major downtime, and/or been subject to massive DDoS attacks. Dealing with any of these scenarios would have a significant negative impact on any organisation. That’s why it’s time to consider a multi-cloud strategy.

A rapidly growing pool of productivity data is aggregated by Microsoft thanks to the broad adoption of cloud productivity suites. Indeed, Office 365 is leading the field with triple the market share of its closest competitor, G Suite.

Office 365 and the Azure cloud platform is therefore a rich source of information detailing how employees conduct their daily work routine, and this has led Microsoft to launch Workplace Analytics. But who gets access to Workplace Analytics, and can it provide real insights for your business?

IT security is one of those business risks that can go under the radar until the worst happens. Businesses that do not operate in the technology arena are especially vulnerable to the consequences of the lack of IT risk assessment. Fortunately, these existential risks can be completely avoided.

What does an IT security assessment do?

In essence, IT security assessments are the actions and procedures that determine, evaluate, and then eliminate a range of vulnerabilities in technology systems and the business processes linked to those systems.