By Sumona
As a business owner, there are so many plates one needs to keep spinning at once – and in today’s landscape of business, nearly every process that is part of running a business involves information technology.
The proliferation of information technology (aka ‘IT’) has been going on for several decades now, and it has reached a point where businesses that are not implementing modern IT services in their organization are going to have a harder job competing in their sectors and markets both in the present and moving forward.
The boom in technologies such as the Cloud, remote access, the Internet of Things; the ubiquity of the internet, social media platforms, and the many content streaming platforms have all contributed heavily to the way in which the average person interacts with the world, especially within a work and business context – these days, most office workers require a computer to do their job effectively, which points to the necessity of certain IT services within the organization.
How to implement & manage IT services?
Many businesses nowadays are electing to outsource the management of their IT services. This can be a highly effective solution. If a business can find a reliable third party whose products, services, and business model aligns with their needs, they will be guaranteed a consistently high service level.
An example of this is TechQuarters, whose IT Services London businesses have been using for over a decade, with many reported advantages over a purely in-house IT department and strategy.
More and more businesses – particularly SMBs – are outsourcing their IT services to companies like TechQuarters, because of the expertise and resources they offer, as well as it is more cost-effective to have a fixed bill that guarantees you high-quality IT services.
There are many managed IT services that businesses should consider.
Below are five fundamental IT services that the businesses of today ought to have in their organization:
1. Support and Monitoring
When most people think about IT in a business context, their minds automatically go to Support. This is because IT support is, of course, completely necessary for modern businesses.
With laptops and PCs becoming essential for work, the increasing use of smartphones for business, and the dependence we have on the internet (which calls for businesses needing all kinds of network solutions in place), a business without a clear IT support service and strategy will quickly find themselves in dire situations – facing extended downtime, and significant drops in productivity.
A modern IT support service is usually centered around a helpdesk – often not a literal desk, but a team of technical engineers who field queries, open cases, and help users in the organization work through any technical difficulties they are experiencing. Modern helpdesks use case management software that consolidates communication channels, enabling users to easily reach out to the helpdesk when they are in need.
The success and quality of a helpdesk are measured in a number of ways – including the average response time, whether or not a user in need can get in direct contact with an engineer (some helpdesks use call loggers and make users wait to be called back), and the percentage of cases closed within a certain timeframe (such as 8 hours after being opened).
These days, a good IT support service does not rely on a break-fix model. More and more businesses are expecting to monitor their IT infrastructure – this is useful because it enables a business to be able to identify cases more quickly and be proactive about fixing technical faults, meaning users don’t need to contact the helpdesk every time something goes wrong.
2. Backups
With the amount of digital data that businesses work with on a daily basis, it is important that one has the right IT solutions in place to keep that data safe and secure.
Company data includes everything from files and documents, financial records, applications, customer data, the list is seemingly endless, and a lot of that data is highly sensitive (especially customer data). This is why Backup services are a critical IT service for businesses of any kind.
There are many situations in which the data of a company could be lost or compromised. Backup services take the fear and uncertainty out of these situations – if you know that there is a recent backup of all your company’s data, then these situations will feel much less grave; an inconvenience, of course, but not a disaster.
Most modern backup services are powered by the Cloud. Before this technology, backups would have to be done manually, and then transported to a different physical location (or else the backup would be redundant); but with Cloud technology, backups can be performed automatically with the right products and services, and stored remotely in the Cloud, making it even easier to restore data.
3. Disaster Recovery
Following on from the necessary Backup service that all businesses ought to have, Disaster Recovery is a closely linked, but distinctly different IT service that is equally important.
A disaster, in the business sense, is any situation that results in a catastrophic failure of infrastructure. Disaster recovery is generally associated with IT, so the infrastructure concerned is usually IT. As mentioned above, data is of the utmost importance in business, and there are many disasters that could occur that result in significant data loss, whether directly, or due to significant physical damage to technical equipment.
Some examples of a disaster are natural events like earthquakes, storms, and floods. Disasters could also be workplace incidences such as fire, equipment damage, or even cyber-attacks.
Backup refers purely to the process of copying data, transferring it to a separate location, and storing it indefinitely. Disaster recovery is a comprehensive planning model – it involves taking precautions to avoid critical functions getting seriously affected by plausible disasters (this is where backup services often tie in).
DR also establishes policies and processes for minimizing the effects of plausible disasters whilst they are happening; finally, it sets out the procedure for recovering functionality in the aftermath of a disaster.
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