It's a busy Tuesday afternoon and you're trying to connect to the office from home. After many unsuccessful attempts and multiple errors, who do you call for support? Do you call the IT department or Sam from accounting who happens to know a bit about computers? Whether your business has an official or unofficial IT department there's usually a "go-to" person when help is needed. That is "IT support". In today's environment, your business needs more than Sam in accounting to provide IT help. Your business may need additional IT resources to support a remote workforce, or you may need assistance with cybersecurity and network performance. Whatever your needs, partnering with an managed service provider can help ensure your business is covered.
What is IT Support?
To simplify it IT support is all about offering help to employees and the organization at large for technology-related issues. The purpose of IT support is to provide users with answers for technical problems they may be experiencing and to do so quickly to avoid disruption in the work flow. IT support can also encompass the setup, installation, and configuration of equipment and many more issues of a business environment.
What does IT Support do?
While fixing problems and answering questions is a main component to IT support, it also encompasses much more. IT support services include optimizing network performance and securing networks again cyberattacks. By partnering with an MSP an organization can realize its full network potential and follow best practices for securing it's digital assets.
Partnering with a capable MSP can alleviate the pressures of setup, installation, configuration and maintenance of network equipment. They can step in to help proactively monitor equipment performance to help avoid downtime from failing equipment and are prepared to step in to help with disaster recovery and back up planning.
Some of the common IT support tasks can include:
Troubleshooting and resolving IT issues
Provider technical assistance to employees
Updating and maintaining company systems and networks
Installing and configuring software
Managing user access permissions and credentials
Rolling out patches and updates
Procuring and provisioning devices
Assisting with data backup and recovery
Why Your Business Needs IT Support in 2023
It is expensive to support an in-house IT department and there are far fewer qualified applicants than there are open positions. 73% of IT leaders say they are struggling to recruit in this space and turnover continues to remain high. This volatility in recruitment and retention makes partnering with an external IT support provider a more viable option for most organization and small and medium businesses.
Another important aspect to consider is the growing concern of cybersecurity threats. 47% of small businesses in the U.S. have fallen victim to a cyberattack. 67% of which have experienced more than one breach. Hackers continue to become more and more sophisticated and are using phishing, password hacking, and adware to attach small businesses. Partnering with a IT support provider provides the adequate expertise and support to keep your business from being left vulnerable.
Downtime from cyberattacks are increasingly costly with the average cost of downtime at $5,600 per minute for smbs. With properly monitored systems, breaches can be prevented and failure of equipment can be identified and fixed before an issues erupts.
Find the Right IT Support for Your Business
Partnering with the right IT service and support provider can go a long way to protect your digital assets and boost your bottom line. MapleTronics provides full service IT management and support for small to medium sized businesses in the Michiana area as well as middle Tennessee. With access to a expert team of IT technicians to help solve your day-to-day IT requests, MapleTronics will take the stress off of your resources and help get you back to the tasks that are important to you. Contact us to learn more about our IT support solutions.