Tag: IT service plan

  • 10 ways to get the most out of your outsourced IT

    10 ways to get the most out of your outsourced IT

    Whether you currently have an outsourced IT resource or you’re considering one (which by the way Valley Techlogic can help with that), you may be wondering how to make the most of the service you’re paying for.

    First let’s describe what we mean by outsourced IT, any personnel resource that’s not directly hired by your organization is outsourced, and with IT specifically there are providers that will provide you access to their entire team for a singular fee (which is often times lower than the cost of hiring one full time person would be).

    Another example is you do have in-house IT personnel, but they’re overwhelmed and unable to keep up with he demand of your organization, or there are projects that fall outside their scope of expertise. In either of these cases, it can make sense to contract with an IT provider to fill in the gaps.

    A third scenario is you have regulatory factors within your business sector and need specialized support to meet those requirements. It can be cost prohibitive as a singular organization to acquire the protections needed but an IT provider is able to share that cost across many clients, which in turn lessens the cost for you and provides the other benefits of outsourced IT as an added bonus.

    There may be a misconception that “outsourced” always means “outside the US”, at Valley Techlogic our technicians are local and able to assist our clients onsite as needed on top of providing remote support. It’s a good idea to ask that question of your provider, especially if they will be handling all of your IT.

    Now that we’ve covered what it means to outsource your IT, here are ten ways to make the most of the services you’re paying for:

    1. Reducing redundancy. You may have redundant IT services you’re paying for, we can identify those services and remove them.
    2. Increased cybersecurity protection. To sum a complicated topic up simply, outsourcing your IT to a provider like Valley Techlogic means you will probably have access to advanced cybersecurity solutions that you may not have otherwise had access to.
    3. Backup for your backups. You hopefully already have a backup plan in place (if you don’t we can help with that too) but are you always sure it’s running appropriately? Part of our daily quality assurance checks is making sure all of our client’s backups are performing optimally.
    4. More time for your existing IT personnel. If you already have IT personnel, they may be swamped just with your day-to-day tasks, if you outsource your IT you can lessen the load so they can focus on business forward activities.
    5. Less time spent down. Downtime is expensive for businesses, your outsourced IT resource should be focusing on eliminating as much downtime as possible due to outages, hardware malfunctions, etc.
    6. Procurement assistance included. Procuring hardware has been more difficult lately due to chip shortages and other delays, our resources for procurement become your resources and we can help you source the equipment you need at possibly a better value.
    7. 24/7 support. Even if you have existing IT staff it’s not realistic to expect them to be on call 24/7, with Valley Techlogic we have a team of technicians, and someone is always available to take your call.
    8. Bring it all under one umbrella. Similar to number one, we can bring all of your IT spending under one umbrella. This includes your Microsoft spending because we’re a dedicated Microsoft partner.
    9. Expert advice. We don’t just provide expert services; we also provide expert advice to our clients on improving their technology and efficiency.
    10. Increased consistency. We usually find with new clients that there’s a lot to do in the beginning, but as we onboard our software and tools and regulate tasks such as performing updates and backup maintenance, the technology process becomes more consistent and reliable for them going forward as a result.

    If you’ve never outsourced your IT before, or have and it didn’t go well you may be wary about trying again with another provider. We value creating a smooth transition to our services for our customers, but we also know sometimes you just need to try something out before committing to it.

    That’s why we’re offering 2 hours of service free to qualified businesses. Here’s a list of ideas for what we could tackle 2 hours on the table, we’re confident our technicians could complete any one of these tasks for you in 2 hours.

    Click to grab the full size printable version.

    Ready to learn more? Claim your 2 hours here or schedule a consultation with us today.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.

    This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, an IT service provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic.

  • How the “skills gap” is changing the world of IT

    How the “skills gap” is changing the world of IT

    The term “skills gap” has been popping up a lot lately and in a nutshell it’s the refers to the difference between the skills your business needs from its employees and what’s actually available in the marketplace.

    Tech innovations occur so rapidly it would be impossible for any one person to be a master in everything that’s required to maintain the technology in most modern workplaces, there will always be a need to seek out assistance with some component of it whether it be through outsourced help or through automation – or both.

    In a survey by Monster nearly one third of employers agree the skills gap has been growing, and it’s effecting how they’re sourcing and employing candidates. With inflation on the rise employees are also seeking greater compensation for highly in-demand skill sets, which from a budgetary standpoint may be difficult for many employers to grapple with.

    It may be advantageous for employers to offer compensation or incentives to existing employees to increase their existing skillsets or “reskill”. With the many hurdles found in hiring qualified candidates in the current working environment, retention will be a key factor in many businesses being able to stay afloat.

    Automation is another component hiring managers are looking towards, especially in the world of tech.

    1. Backing up data: If you’re a Microsoft 365 customer, backing up your device data is easy with OneDrive.
    2. Email Signature: Still typing your name at the end of every email response? It doesn’t take very long, but across dozens of emails per week it can add up. Setup an email signature in Outlook (with a new email open go to Insert > Signatures) and save that little bit of time with every email.
    3. Paying Bills: Still making manual payments? Why? Setup automatic payments where you can and skip logging in and making that manual payment every month.
    4. Typing Passwords: Not only does typing in a password for everything waste valuable time, it also creates a security risk because an easy to remember password is also potentially an easy to crack password. Try using a password manager like LastPass to create stronger passwords and save time.

    Of course, there are much more advanced automation services available to assist your business, but many will require at least some initial tech know-how or even an on-hand technician available to maintain them.

    The skills gap is also affecting those who rely on short-term technical help to bridge the gap, during a time when it seems like the price of everything is going up so to, is the cost of hiring emergency technical support. Especially when it’s required afterhours.

    If after reading this you’re wondering what your best option is, trying to hire someone or relying on expensive emergency support we do want to provide a third option – outsourced IT.

    We’re not unbiased here, but hiring outsourced IT does have a number of benefits in the current hiring climate that you may not have considered. See the chart below for examples:

    Interested in learning more? Schedule a consultation with us today.

    Looking for more to read? We suggest these other articles from our site.

    This article was powered by Valley Techlogic, an IT service provider in Atwater, CA. You can find more information at https://www.valleytechlogic.com/ or on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/valleytechlogic/ . Follow us on Twitter at https://x.com/valleytechlogic.