What Makes a Good IT Partner?
There are a lot of things that you can do in business to make sure everything is easier for you and your team. You can get the best tools out there, provide your employees with everything they need to succeed, and you can get a big budget. But that’s not all.
In this world where almost everything is IT-based, one of the smartest things you can do as an SMB is to look for a good IT company to help you out. Finding the right IT partner is one of the best things you can do for your organization.
But how important is it for you to hire the right IT company? What exactly is at stake? Couldn’t you just get the one with the cheapest offer on the table? Let’s talk about why hiring a good IT company can make or break your business and how you can determine if they are the right fit during your first interview.
Why Hire a Good IT Company?
It’s a cliche, really. Whenever you ask successful business owners on how they solve their IT concerns they will probably give you two answers:
- Hire great IT people to create an IT department for your business.
- Hire a good IT company to take care of your IT issues for you.
But what does a good IT company really bring to the table? Why should a business bother to sift through proposals to find the right fit? We’ve listed down the top benefits of hiring a good IT company that is a perfect fit for your business. This way, you can see for yourself if going through all the trouble of getting them is worth it.
- Proven expertise right off the bat – A good IT company has teams of expert IT engineers and technicians who can assist you with anything IT-related as soon as you ink the contract. You won’t have to conduct training or seminars to get them up to speed. They can just look at your IT setup and they will have the right people to take care of all your IT needs.
- Processes that work – Not all IT companies are created equal. The good ones have existing processes that they have implemented and tweaked throughout the years. This means you are getting a team that has existing processes that they can implement (or you can adapt) that are proven to work. No more guessing what to do for certain IT situations, just tell your IT partner and they will know what to do.
- Timely service – Downtime is a business’s worst enemy. When you are not providing your customers your services, you are losing money. With a competent IT company, you get timely service that gets you back up and running in no time.
- Lower costs – One of the biggest upsides to hiring an IT company instead of creating an IT department is the lower costs. Instead of paying X number of employees a monthly salary, you only pay an IT company your agreed monthly price and you get all the benefits of an IT department and more.
- Predictable costs – Aside from lowering your capital and operating expenditure, hiring an IT company also helps your budget by providing predictable costs. With a good IT company, you will be given a clear and transparent monthly bill with no surprise costs. This means you already know how much you are going to pay for the month right away. This will help you in budgeting and forecasting expenses which is really essential for growing businesses.
- Safe and Secure – If your business handles sensitive data, getting a good IT company ensures you only get the best and most secure data handling and storage solutions out there. A good IT company understands how important data is and always aims to provide their clients with peace of mind knowing their data is safe from criminal elements.
- Unparalleled Scalability – A growing business needs to be able to scale when needed. Implementing new IT systems yourself can take weeks or months (and lots of manpower). If you have an IT company to do all the work for you, you can easily scale up or down as needed without worrying about all the IT details.
How Can You Ensure You Are Talking to A Good IT Company?
Reading through the benefits of working with an excellent IT company sounds exciting, right? But before you enjoy all of those, you still have to go through the process of finding one. Sadly, it’s not as easy as doing a Google search for “Good IT Company” and picking the first one that comes up on the results. For good measure, welcome every proposal that comes through the door. Spend a few minutes to interview them. Most often than not, it will be during the interview that you will find out if they are the perfect fit for you or not. Here are a couple of questions that can help you qualify them.
What kind of IT services do you provide?
If possible, you need an IT company who can provide you with everything you need IT-wise. Assuming you already have a list of what kind of services you need, you must check whether or not they completely check off the list.
How do you charge your clients?
A good IT company can usually answer this question straight up. Note that there are different ways that they can charge you but look for one that offers something similar to per-user or per-device charging. This is the most cost-effective pricing plan for most SMBs. Be wary of IT companies that try to muddle the pricing discussion or offer vague explanations for the plans. This may be because they have hidden charges that come up month after month.
What is your experience with businesses in my industry?
If you want to work with a good IT company, you need to find an organization that has had experience with your industry. This makes everything easier for both parties. If they have extensive experience with businesses similar to you, they will have processes and IT solutions ready to be implemented for your business. They can also anticipate future IT issues and prepare contingency plans for when the need arises.
Do you have 24/7 help desk support?
Problems can come up at any time in business especially for those offering round-the-clock services. A good IT company should have somebody ready to provide assistance at any time of the day, 7 days a week. Help desk support exists to help with smaller IT issues like connectivity problems or printer issues. While these issues seem small, they can really throw a wrench on the organization’s overall productivity if they are not solved right away.
How safe is my business with you?
Any good IT business understands that security is one of the top priorities for any business. They should be able to provide you with a clear set of security protocols or features aimed at ensuring your business and your data are safe. This should include but is not limited to, network monitoring, data backups, software updating, antivirus installations, and other updates.
If you are a business located in New Jersey then you can start with Mathe. Mathe has been providing IT support and services to organizations in New Jersey and throughout the United States. With a team of seasoned and dedicated IT experts, Mathe provides cost-effective solutions for all your business IT concerns – at a price that can’t be beaten. Contact us today and ask how Mathe can help your business rise above the competition.
With over 35 years in the business of supporting and implementing technology for the SME market, and 6 years previously in Corporate IT and Voice. I have seen a great deal of change. The only common thread is I have always focused on the Business Wise application of Technology. We always try to look 5 years ahead of the current technology to make sure our clients are on the right track to meet current and future needs.
