In-house VS Outsourced IT Support

The problems related to infrastructure are present every day: when a printer is not broken, a hard disk failure. One of the alternatives for dealing with this problem is to hire a specialized service that deals with the subject company and that allows you to concentrate on your business.

At this stage of the game, you already know plenty this succession of Murphy’s Law: all computers that are part of their IT infrastructure will break at some point; that time will, of course, the moment they are most needed, for example, when reviewing the warranty, you will notice that expired 24 hours before the break.

That’s when you consider that, more than anything in the world, his priority is to get someone to immediately solve your computer problem. If you decide to call a technical support for companies , you will notice that is never available when you need it and if you say you can go visit, consider this visit as an “emergency” and will charge a small fortune and painful.

On the other hand, it is fair to clarify that if you had chosen to pay a salary to a person’s profile “tecki” for safekeeping their teams, it will never happen to them all, and then feel that you have a resource that costs money and does not give any positive results.

Every company has, since its genesis, somehow solve their computing needs. Either through someone within the firm ideal that probably has other functions, one neighboring house computer or any independent professional, to name a few possibilities. The problem occurs when a time of crisis (whether of growth, a serious contingency or for the removal of the one who knows the subject inside the company) the company understands that all your business depends on technology, and that their support structure is fragile, unplanned, with little possibility of continuity, with inadequate response times and is served in an unprofessional manner.

Here arises, then, an alternative that many small and medium businesses are increasingly considering: the outsourcing of service. What does it consist of? In hiring a company specializing in the subject, and pay either a monthly fee or a fee on duty to guarantee the availability of the specialist when conflict breaks out.

The companies generally think of a service in its times of crisis, although there are exceptions: some people do not expect to lose all of your information in the file server to discover that they have a truly efficient backup policy or antivirus for instance.

In-house versus outsourced service

Doubt appears, however, in the head of every business owner at some point, “you should opt for outsourcing or try to fix from now on to someone working internally in the company?”.

Why an SME support should outsource ?. A restaurant not plant lettuce salads or used in breeding cows which makes the steaks, because you have suppliers who can do that better and let you concentrate on your focus. Following the same reasoning, a business that has an internal person engaged in the service takes resources that can be used to improve business.

SMEs should devote their efforts to their own business, and good for them to have a reliable external organization and technologically updated to resolve their technical problems.

Many SMEs are going in that direction, using a trained team in the field that can provide the best resources to minimize the usual everyday problems that arise in the technological environment of the company. ”

Trusted support

To play a role as dedicated as the outsourcing of technical services for SMEs , it is necessary that the supplier is “trust”. The question then is how it is done to create this delicate value.

Generating confidence in the client is given after much time and work long term.

While it is a complex process, when set, it gives good results for the provider at the time of entering the market. Word of mouth is a good way to get a new customer, the “ideal prospect” as “the company that is about to change technical service for the fifth time in a year and listening to another company talking rather a technical service provider of maintenance pc .

For the confidence of small and medium enterprises there are several important aspects: first, to have a spotless ethical behavior and demonstrate competence and professionalism in what is done. And, of course, preserve the most important asset of SMEs, which is their information. Once the contract is already in place, the key is to establish a personal relationship with customers, which helps achieve full confidence.

Choosing the right service

Beyond trust, we must be very careful not to fail when selecting a service provider. In principle, it is necessary to pay attention to certain key facts: age of the company in the market, customer references, how to establish contracts and expertise. This last item is very important because many computer owners use the service as a decoy to boost sales, but they have more experience in the subject.

Service contract

A professional outsourcing require the signature of a contract to begin operations.

Here is another item that you should pay a lot of attention appears not to suffer setbacks in the future or be “attached” to an inefficient provider.

To avoid misunderstandings and major inconveniences, the contract should be described in concrete terms what services are provided and what is the scope of each.

This means that the role that both parties sign must be clear evidence of what is included in the service and what not. It is very common in this market, particularly among the least professional providers that charge “extras” for practically anything. Therefore, the contract is a critical tool that can not be signed lightly.

It is a contract to provide services. I will deal mainly the amount of regular visits, unlimited or not access to our Help Desk and / or unlimited access to the emergency room on site. There are several important aspects of the contract, such as the confidentiality agreement, the service-level agreement or replacement of staff assigned in case of absence.

Outsourcing services are becoming a more strong in the universe of small and medium enterprises trend. In general, SMEs perform the same business cycles than large companies, but with a time lag.

Today, when corporations question whether outsourcing is the best model for your business, for SMEs wave he came in that it is a very important tool for operation.

Not the same results are obtained with an internal person with outsourcing, because it does not always have all the necessary skills for the position, and because, if it does not require much of it ends up being a very expensive resource for the company.

Immediate solution, availability of infrastructure, costs controlled … outsourcing of service is, today, a good move for SMEs whose computer systems are becoming increasingly important in business. If a company depends on its computers to check or to make collections, is expected to be a fool not good coverage level to prevent, to a problem, that team is out of operation for too long.

Activities that can be outsourced

Some of the activities that can be outsourced:

• Installation, configuration and start-brand PCs and servers.
• User support.
• Periodic preventive maintenance visits.
• Repair PCs, servers, printers and any element of computer equipment.
• Antivirus services.
• Backup services information.
• Human resources
• Software Support (problems that appear in Outlook, Office, etc.).
• Application Support (control of key programs that make the business).

Basic keys to outsource the service:

For thus it provided in a timely manner of qualified personnel to solve problems that may arise.
Because this way, all the resources of SMEs are forced into related business running tasks, not tasks that are not part of its core business.

Because it is a solution with more controlled costs and provided that if you decide to pay in a timely manner by individual technical services every time something breaks.

For so the equipment availability is guaranteed (if a machine breaks down and does not have a service outsourcing, the company may lose a lot of money while “waiting” that someone can fix it, especially if that team is important to run the business).