4 Strategies for Doing More with Less Through Outsourced IT

In the face of uncertainty due to the coronavirus pandemic, many businesses are putting expenditures on hold and trying to weather the storm. Yet they also need to reinvent certain parts of their operations to adjust to the new reality of social distancing and employees working from home.

How do you do more with less? How can you invent new business strategies to reach out to customers in creative ways, without increasing costs?

Initially, it’s important to look at typical technology investments, then look at ways you can address those areas while reducing costs instead of adding to them.

What does “technology investment” encompass?

It includes everything from maintaining your current hardware to strategic upgrading to more efficient systems. It can also include streamlining your cloud services to integrate, automate, and reduce waste and ensuring strong IT security.

According to the 2020 State of IT Report by Spiceworks, the top focuses for IT budgets included:

• Upgrading outdated infrastructure (64%)
• Increased security concerns (47%)
• Employee growth (47%)
• Increased focus on IT projects (45%)
• Business revenue increases (31%)

Smart technology strategies help your business continue to operate in an uncertain time and take full advantage of the cost savings and efficiency improvements of IT.

How Can Outsourcing My IT Help Me Save Money?

Technology has gone from being something that’s used occasionally to improve a process to a structure that’s synonymous with business operations. When it’s running effectively, so is your business. When it’s not, your business also suffers.

During times when budgets are tight, using your technology to its fullest can help you come out ahead by doing more with less. Here are some of the ways that outsourcing your IT can help your company reduce costs and expand potential.

1. Streamline Cloud Use

There are many things that can impact a business and cause disruption. How well you plan your technology infrastructure directly impacts how well your business can weather various storms.

Cloud systems can ensure business operations stay intact no matter what may happen to your physical office by giving you the ability to assist customers, pay employees, and keep your team connected from any location.

But without proper guidance from an IT pro, companies can end up paying more than they need to in Cloud subscription costs. They can also have systems that aren’t well integrated and are costing them when it comes to productivity.

An outsourced IT provider can help you streamline and improve your use of the Cloud in several ways, including:

• Reduce redundant applications
• Integrate systems to eliminate manual entry
• Lower overall Cloud subscription costs by helping you optimize plans
• Steer you towards the most cost efficient and effective Cloud solutions

2. Ensure Strong Cybersecurity

The threat landscape that businesses face is always changing. Hackers release hundreds of thousands of new malware variants every day and come up with new ways to attack networks through things like “fileless” attacks.

During the coronavirus pandemic, phishing has skyrocketed as hackers try to take advantage of home networks that are typically less secure than those in an office.

A data breach from lack of proper cybersecurity protections carries an average cost of over $3 million, a cost that causes many small businesses to close after being attacked.

Working with an outsourced IT pro ensures that no protective measures are being missed. When employees are working from home, this is especially important because remote connections to your business data are happening from multiple home Wi-Fi connections.

3. Improve the Customer Experience

One thing that technology has done is enable faster and more personalized interactions with customers, which in turn has led to them expecting more from a company.

Where ten years ago, a customer might not have expected a reply to their email right away, today, many expect it within 24 hours, if not sooner.

How well you continue to handle customer support during a crisis can help your company stand out, or leave it struggling.

An outsourced IT provider can help you put customer-facing technology in place. They can optimize your current systems to improve the customer experience when it comes to things like response times, ways customers can interact with your company, and product/service delivery.

The easier you make it for someone to do business with you, the more likely they are to become a customer and stay loyal.

4. Improve Employee Productivity

Uncovering ways to use your current business tools more effectively can improve employee productivity dramatically. Something as simple as adding an automation to eliminate a manual function can save hours per week and reduce oversights and errors.

Many businesses are using their cloud solutions “out of the box” without properly customizing them. This means they could be leaving features they pay for in their subscription unused.- features that could be helping their employees do more.

An IT professional works with multiple companies and understands the software tools they use inside and out. By tailoring your cloud tools to your business needs, they can improve team productivity and output by fully optimizing the tools you’re already using.

Get Help Creating a Strategic Cost-Saving Technology Plan

Are you looking for guidance to ensure your IT is as cost efficient as possible? Cleartech Group can enable your business success by making technology effective and easy to use.

Contact us today to discuss how we can help you do more with less – call us at 978-466-1938 or reach out online.