Are You Confident in Your IT Company?
How Confident Are You In Your Current IT Company?
Is there anything more important than technology for modern businesses nowadays? It’s been said that every company is a technology company.
Why?
Because every business, regardless of size or industry, needs technology to make, market, and sell their products and services. It’s simply impossible without technology. So naturally, your IT company plays an integral role in helping your organization grow and succeed in the marketplace.
You need your technology to function properly, to let you handle virtually all aspects of your business:
- Communicating with clients, prospects, partners, and vendors
- Keeping track of inventory and distribution
- Recording and accessing financial documents, client information, and other data
- Tracking marketing metrics and opportunities
- And much, much more
This is why modern businesses don’t manage their own information technology infrastructure the way they would a decade ago. Now, businesses have far too much hardware, software, and other complex equipment to handle on their own. Instead, they typically hire an outsourced company or an in-house department to keep everything monitored, managed, and maintained properly.
5 Signs Your IT Company Isn’t Cutting It
If you’re reading this, you’re likely not entirely satisfied with your IT company. You may even be losing confidence in their capabilities altogether. How do you know if your gut instinct is right? Well, here are five signs they’re not cutting it:
- Unplanned downtime: A huge part of their job is monitoring and proactively managing your infrastructure to prevent downtime. If you’re experiencing unplanned downtime regularly, they’re not doing the bare minimum.
- Slow response time: If you’re waiting more than an hour for a response every single time something goes wrong, and you request support, you’re waiting too long. At a minimum, they should let you know they’ve received your request quickly.
- Frequent virus infections: Cybersecurity is critical in today’s day and age. If you’re experiencing frequent virus infections, they’re not taking proper precautions to keep you safe against threats.
- Salesy approach: If they’re always looking to sell you something as opposed to offering strategic guidance with a business case for every recommendation, it’s time to move on. You don’t want to feel like you’re always being sold something new.
- Lack of communication: Do they stay in constant communication with you throughout support requests, projects, and other initiatives? Or do they let you know when they’re starting and when they’re done, and that’s it?
5 Things Your IT Company Should Be Doing
If you feel like your IT company isn’t cutting it based on the list above, take a look at the five things your IT company should be doing and ask yourself if they’re doing them for you:
- Monitoring and maintaining your entire infrastructure, including applying patches, watching for any sort of issues, and upgrading equipment as it reaches the end of its useful life.
- Keeping your data backed up regularly and testing those backups frequently to make sure they’re recoverable in the event of some sort of data loss or ransomware infection.
- Implementing a multi-layered approach to cybersecurity that incorporates firewalls, anti-virus software, spam filtering, multi-factor authentication, and other measures designed to protect your network.
- Communicating with you on a strategic level about your short and long-term goals and how technology can be leveraged to help you meet them while alleviating any sort of challenges in your way.
- Responding to support requests in a timely manner in terms of letting you know when they’ve received a request within an hour, then keeping you updated as they work on the request.
If you’re not feeling completely confident in your IT company after reading through this article, it’s time for a change.
Click here to get in touch with one of our representatives or call us at (877) 936-3328.