It's hard to see how investing in your company's IT services would be as incentivizing as other investments that might deliver a more tangible ROI. However, ensuring that your IT department has a competent team that's up-to-date on the latest cyber security knowledge and has access to the latest software to allow them to do their jobs well is a sounder investment than you might think.
Investing in your IT services is a little like buckling your seat belt before you drive to work in the morning. You're certainly not planning on getting in a crash that day, but you know that if you do, the seat belt will keep you safe, or at least mitigate the bodily damage the crash could cause.
We live in a world where it pays for companies to be on the forefront of cyber security. Even in just the past few years, ransomware and other cyber-attacks have become increasingly common, and they target antiquated IT systems that have yet to get with the times. If hackers can infiltrate your company's servers and hold that data hostage, it could financially cripple your company to try to get it back - or shut it down entirely. It could also destroy your company's reputation and hurt your clients and customers.
You need an IT team that you can depend on to keep your company safe, but that still leaves the problem of cost. We get it: keeping your IT up-to-date is expensive, whether because you can't afford to hire the right number of IT professionals or because you can't afford the software necessary for keeping your company from getting hacked. That's why we believe co-managed IT is the best option for companies looking to protect their employees and their customers' sensitive data.
Co-managed IT is a means by which growing companies can have access to all the tools and knowledge necessary to protect their data without paying the full cost. It won't replace your current IT team, and it's more than just a one-off project-based relationship with an outside IT service - it's a flexible partnership between your business and IT services that you can trust.
Say your existing IT team does a stellar job of putting out the little fires that inevitably happen throughout the workday, but they struggle to find time for building and updating company security systems and protocols that will keep your data safe in the event of a cyber-attack. Or your company is going through a period of rapid expansion, and you can't hire enough people for your IT department quickly enough to secure your ever-growing databases. Or perhaps your IT team does a stellar job of finding balance between the daily tasks and preventive maintenance, but they lack the software tools to do so efficiently. In all these scenarios, co-managed IT can ensure that those gaps your IT team just can't fill on their own get filled through a collaborative effort.
Co-managed IT can be a great solution for a burnt-out, potentially disgruntled IT team. If you don't know whether your IT team is getting burnt out or not, you can look for a few different signs. If they're constantly working late or on weekends, they're not getting projects done on time or correctly, they aren't creating any new security measures or they're showing signs of aggression or frustration at their job, you might be burdened with a burnt-out IT team.
Ideally, a burnt-out IT team would welcome help with their responsibilities and see the benefits of the collaborative effort between them and another group of experienced IT professionals. Together, we can protect your company from hackers, if you're willing to invest in your IT infrastructure. Even though you might think that keeping things the way they are won't cost you a dime, with how common cyber-attacks are becoming, it could only be a matter of time before hackers hold your data for ransom and cost you everything.
With all this in mind, we strongly encourage you and your IT lead to come to a diagnostic consultation with us. We'll help you understand how, moving forward, co-managed IT can save your company a boatload of money and trouble.
