By George Ralph, RFA – Outsourcing your IT support may seem like a luxury in austerity Britain, but it can save time, drive efficiencies and actually give firms a competitive edge. Employees are key stakeholders in defining the perception of a firm, and if they receive a great service when they have an issue with their IT, it will reflect well on the firm’s reputation.

By outsourcing IT support, firms can avoid downtime before it affects business. Reliable partners will make a significant investment in technology to monitor infrastructure, quickly identifying issues and often resolving them before they are brought to attention. 


It can be difficult and costly to find support staff who have the right mix of skills that a firm needs. An essential requirement when choosing your IT support partner should be that they hold the most current and relevant accreditations. If they have in-depth sector specific knowledge, they will be fully aware of the accreditations that will allow them to deliver first rate support services.


By specifying requirements, the level of cover needed and the hours to cover, firms can ensure their needs are covered. It can be difficult to employ in house support staff to work weekends, or overnight, not to mention the overtime. When choosing an outsource partner, it is important to check the Terms and Conditions to make sure that the service is suitable. Can firms set SLAs that meet their working hours, rather than the prescribed 9-5? Is 24/7 cover possible? If a short-term contract is needed, is that possible, or is there a 12 month minimum term?


Remote support is great, but there are times when only an onsite engineer will do. Outsourcing doesn’t have to mean giving up on-site support. Local IT support partners could be onsite quickly.


By outsourcing some of the more mundane support tasks that can take up so much of the IT department’s time, firms can free up the in-house staff to make strategic decisions, properly manage technology infrastructure and navigate the inevitable problems and issues when they crop up.


Another element of outsourced IT support, which is often overlooked is the wealth of experience that comes from managing multiple clients. Particularly if they are in the same sector. Firms will, sometimes without realising it, be benefiting from a support engineer having dealt with a similar issue with another client, and a much speedier remediation. This diversity can mean that new ideas and solutions are introduced by the outsourced partner, which may not have been introduced by an in-house team.


A good IT support partner is one which understands its customers’ needs as well as they understand them, and works incredibly hard to ensure that technology meets those needs.