From mobile applications to cloud-based servers, business owners have plenty of choices when it comes to technology. But choose poorly and you may end up wasting time and money on a solution that hinders your company’s growth.
To make sure this doesn’t happen, meeting with an IT consultant can help you improve business performance in several ways.
Develop strategies that align with objectives
It’s difficult to critically assess the effectiveness of your current processes and technologies, especially when your expertise lies in business management rather than IT.
With IT consulting services, experts evaluate your business objectively, and offer a plan for optimizing things like hardware, software, network, or workflow. For example, let’s assume your team lacks the ability to collaborate on files and their only means of sharing files is by passing them around via email. Once your consultant know this, they can help you identify the apps you need such as cloud-based software like Office 365.
Apart from recommending new technologies, consultants can also provide advice on managing systems. Suppose your web applications like Outlook online or SharePoint are running unusually slow. With network consulting, professionals can determine what is causing the bandwidth issues and suggest ways to speed things back up again. By cutting out unnecessary processes and offering easy-to-implement solutions, you’ll enjoy noticeable improvements in business productivity and efficiency.
Optimize costs
No matter what recommendations are made, IT consultants always consider your budgetary constraints. If your company requires Voice over IP but can’t afford advanced telecom features, a technology expert might suggest a pay-as-you-go internet-based phone system like VoIP that doesn't eat into profits.
Additionally, an IT advisor will perform cost-benefit analyses for every solution you’ve implemented or are planning to implement. This helps keep your project spending on track and determine whether or not existing solutions are worth the continued investment.
Analyze your security and business continuity risks
Considering many business processes rely on always-on technology, system failures can mean huge financial and productivity losses. In fact, a study from the IDC shows SMBs that have experienced downtime due to IT failure lost between $82,200 and $256,000 per event.
To keep technology failures to a minimum, it's a good idea to hire a consultant who can perform vulnerability and business continuity assessments for your business. The former will help you identify and recommend fixes for weaknesses in your system well before a hacker exploits them. The latter makes sure that data backups are secure, systems are recoverable, and employees are ready for any disaster.
Get access to the latest technologies
To maintain a competitive edge, you need to be aware of game-changing solutions and how they apply to your business. IT consultants are your best source for staying up to date with new product developments. And since they often have well-established relationships with leading vendors and national brands, you can get in early on disruptive technologies like machine learning, automation, and unified communications.
Execute IT plans effortlessly
Other than merely making evaluations and suggestions, consultants will help you develop and initiate implementation plans. They make sure installation goes according to plan, check whether hardware and software have the right configurations, and make adjustments so that your systems live up to their investment. What’s more, an IT consultant who is an employee of a managed services provider will offer 24/7 support of just about all the technology your business utilizes.
Ultimately, your focus should be on growing your business, and with the help of IT professionals you don’t have to worry about making complicated infrastructure decisions on your own.
If you think your processes and systems could use an upgrade, sit down with IntelligISTM consultants and discuss your issues. We provide thorough assessments, strategies, and support so you can boost business performance. Contact us at www.intelligis.com.
