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Annual Maintenance IT Services - Why Business Can't Do Without It
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Annual Maintenance IT Services - Why Business Can't Do Without It

Published 31 Aug 2022
In this article we will talk about the essence and advantages of annual maintenance IT services or IT outsourcing, and also find out the symptoms when companies can’t survive without it.

Managed IT services are the partial or complete transfer of support, maintenance and infrastructure upgrades under the management of a Professional IT provider. The service can be provided the level of the entire infrastructure or at the level of its individual parts — for example, hosting or information security (IS).

Comprehensive maintenance IT services include:
  • Monitoring of the entire infrastructure and its components 24/7
  • Installing, configuring and updating software
  • Backup of critical data
  • Full-fledged information security
  • Training of specialists and employees
  • Hardware and software procurement


Reasons to Switch to Annual Maintenance IT Services


There are a number of signs, or "symptoms", by which it will become clear that it is time for the company to delegate authority to manage the information structure.

Employees of the IT department are mired in turnover

A system administrator working in the state is unlikely to recommend the management to contact third-party companies, and even more so to argue that the quality of work will increase. So he will sign in his incompetence and inability to switch to another mode of operation. Therefore, the choice is primarily for the management — the IT director or the business.

There are several signs of unsatisfactory work of the IT department, which will help to understand the need to switch to managed IT services:
  • Due to problems with the software or the inability to update it, the overall efficiency of work decreases.
  • It is not possible to achieve an adequate Internet connection speed for reasons unrelated to the quality of the provider's channel.
  • The PBX is configured unsatisfactorily, there are constant communication issues.
  • It is necessary to integrate new software and modernize the entire infrastructure, and knowledge and experience are not enough for this.
  • There are situations when a full-time system administrator is competent, but physically cannot solve dozens of tasks at the same time. This is another reason to trust an IT outsourcer with a large staff.


If a large company, with its own website (especially an online store or portal), uses a large number of computers, servers, office equipment, and network equipment, this is an additional argument in favor of Annual Maintenance IT Contract instead of the IT department, which will be large and complex in terms of hierarchy.

IT costs are constantly and unpredictably growing

There are a number of reasons that raise the question of additional costs for IT infrastructure:
  • Its current configuration does not meet modern requirements for performance, reliability, and safety.
  • Overloads and/or malfunctions in computer and telecommunication equipment are increasingly occurring.
  • There are moral and/or technical aspects of infrastructure obsolescence.
  • The company has grown, and we need to scale the business.
  • Standards change every year and requirements for information security, and protection of personal data of employees and customers grow.
  • If administrative or personnel resources are added to the lack of financial resources, it will become clear that without serious changes, costs will only grow, and efficiency at best will remain at the same level.
Managed IT services in the long term provides cost savings because a number of activities are carried out once and for a long time:
  • Checking and identifying infrastructure problems.
  • Collecting and documenting business requirements for the level of service and IT.
  • Formation of the concept of new infrastructure.
  • Supply of equipment and programs necessary for full operation.
  • Integration of the proposed solutions.
  • Health check and elimination of identified errors and malfunctions in software and hardware.
  • Development of instructions and other documentation on working with the IT infrastructure.
  • It is enough to ask yourself the question: "Can my employees do all this for free or inexpensively?", and everything will fall into place.

There are restrictions on the modernization of services without IT maintenance

What are the limitations:

  • Technical (hardware and software) — obsolescence, incompatibility with older software versions, failure, and inability to replace promptly.
  • Financial — the impossibility of constant support or allocation of an additional budget for updating services.
  • Partial or complete lack of competence of the personnel to maintain new versions of the current software or to operate a new and mandatory one for implementation in the company.

Resources for technical support and service maintenance are growing


To assess how much and with what frequency expenses are growing, you can see how much the company spends on the following processes:

  • Maintenance of servers of client computers, as well as PBX.
  • Hardware and software updates.
  • Prevention and maintenance of client PCs.
  • Fighting cyber threats and configuring antivirus programs.
  • Training of personnel in corporate security standards.
  • Adaptation of infrastructure to the changed realities of business.
  • Repair of network and peripheral equipment.
  • Office relocation (infrastructure migration).
  • Technical support for users.
  • The staff of narrow-profile IT specialists is growing

Conclusion


You need to understand that Annual Maintenance IT Services works for the future: today you are optimizing everything related to the infrastructure of the enterprise, and in the near future you are achieving significant resource savings. Employees spend less time on routine operations and are engaged in strategically significant tasks. It is known in advance how much money and when to allocate for the purchase of hardware and software. The specialists of the IT provider will always tell you where it is worth investing more money, and where it is not worth spending.
First Bit Team
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