Does Your IT Company Have Expertise?
In IT, nothing can substitute knowledge and experience. You either have them, or you don’t, and nothing can substitute them.
When seeking talent to manage your IT, you are not just looking for any random person with a lot of time to spare. In as much as you want someone to perform tasks you are too held up for, they must be industry-accredited and have the right level of subject expertise.
Why Must Your IT Company Have Expertise?
Digitization has rapidly changed how we obtain information. Just by a few clicks on your PC, you can troubleshoot and access information on a wide range of potential solutions. Is that what you expect from your IT company?
When you talk to experts from the service provider, do they give ‘straight from Google’ answers? Do they sound like they confidently understand what they are doing?
The fact of the matter is that there’s a gradual shift from knowing all the relevant information to just having to know where to find them, thanks to digitization. Even if your IT professionals were to rely on the internet for guidance, they still need the requisite expertise to apply it. The experience will help them to know where exactly they can find the required information. In any case, not every tech tip on the internet is accurate and applicable to your specific situation; again, expertise is required to discern this.
So, has digitization watered down the necessity to work with an IT company that had expertise? No. It has availed opportunities and challenges alike, further reinforcing the skillsets’ vitality.
Are There Any Risks Involved in Working With a Service Provider Who Is Limited in Expertise?
Absolutely.
For starters, they are most likely to lift solutions directly from the internet. On the surface level, these solutions may look very flowery — but they have no substantial ROI.
They are also inclined to having a break/fix approach to IT management. Skills are needed to identify proactive solutions, deploy, and manage them. Now that they don’t have this expertise, they will only wait for problems to occur and rush to the internet to seek remedies. This approach leaves your networks vulnerable to external interference. Who knows? The next breach might just put you out of business.
How Do You Know That Your IT Company Has The Relevant Expertise?
An IT Company with expertise should deliver the following:
- Management of Your Cybersecurity: Perhaps the biggest worry of any modern-day business owner or manager today is the security of their networks. And reasonably so, the recent days have seen some of the world’s worst data breaches. In such times of heightened terror, your last hope is the expertise of your IT company. They should develop proactive security measures, deploy, and regularly review them. An experienced service provider understands that no gateways are failproof. For this reason, they develop rapid-response protocols and ensure that you and your staff are conversant with them. The IT company should train your employees on cybersecurity literacy and awareness — and continuously monitor their preparedness levels through simulated cyberattacks. When it comes to cybersecurity, there is no room for double chances, you either have experienced technicians with the right expertise or have none. Cyberattacks are very costly and threaten even the survival of your organization.
- Help With Compliance Issues: Modern-day consumers have become increasingly interested in how you handle the data you obtain from them. In response, authorities have moved in quickly to safeguard these interests. Strict compliance regulations have been enforced to ensure you protect the integrity of this data. While it is the IT company’s job to find the applicable regulations and ensure your firm complies, you will be fined in cases of non-compliance. This is why it is essential to find a service provider experienced in your particular field or industry. They should have experts who are specialized in handling compliance with regulations for organizations of your type. For example, if you are a learning institution, the support company should have dealt with other learning institutions before.
- The Latest Cutting Edge Technology: It’s needless to insist that one of the main reasons you outsource IT support is to have top-tier technology management. The twist here is that technology trends come and go, and not every fad is the next Cloud. Some of these technologies are genuinely transformative but not relevant to your field. An IT company needs the expertise to distinguish these minor, yet very critical differences. Otherwise, you risk making very many IT investments with no ROI. Your IT needs are not static; they evolve by the day. You expect the IT supplier to wield their experience in implementing the latest technologies to address these needs as they come. Technologies such as the Cloud have improved how we conduct business. They provide unlimited storage space, flexibility, and ease of scalability. As you’d expect, the Cloud is complex, and only service providers with the necessary expertise can help you implement it.
- Help Desk and Consultancy: If your IT company is going to rely entirely on the internet, they are not any different from your end-users who will be seeking clarification from them. At times your in-office staff may need to consult with the company on emerging tech issues. Are you confident in the help they will receive? Now that you know what to expect from them, does your IT company have the expertise your organization requires? Are you trusting in them to help you through the next phase of scalability? How much effort have they made to shield your networks from cyberattacks?
For more information on this and any other tech issues, Atlantic-IT.net is your go-to IT company. We are the number one provider of managed IT services in Pennsylvania, New York, and New Jersey.
