IT is a crucial part of every business, and it goes far beyond tech support. Yet few people understand the full range and scope of IT services that are available, and how they can benefit you, whether you outsource them or do them in-house.
In this guide, we’re going to take an in-depth look at the key different types of IT support that are available and what they involve. By the time you’ve finished this article, you’ll know which IT services your business could benefit from the most.
Are you ready to learn more? Then let’s get started!
IT Security
Security is a broad area and covers many different disciplines. However, they all have the same aim: protecting your business from malware and ensuring that your data stays secure. This is vitally important due to the sheer cost of data breaches, not to mention the loss of customer trust that would come from a data breach.
At its most basic level, IT security services can help keep your data safe by installing the necessary tools to keep your business safe. These include a strong antivirus program and a firewall, both of which can prevent bad actors from compromising your network.
However, IT security services go further than this. For instance, they can help to create a business continuity plan that will help you respond to a data breach or other disasters. They can also implement physical security measures at your business, such as IP video surveillance and IP access control.
All of these different strategies can come together to create a strong and secure business.
Enterprise Resource Planning
Enterprise resource planning, or ERP, is the use of software to manage your business’ main processes. This can touch upon numerous different areas of your business.
For instance, ERP software like Epicor can help you know more about the granular details of your company, which in turn can lead to more effective project management. ERP services may have project management consultants on their team, who can step in to help you better manage your projects using this software too.
If you’ve just learned about the world of ERP and want to start using it at your business, an implementation consultant is also vital. ERP can be very complex, especially if your business operates in multiple different niches. Bringing an implementation consultant onboard can make the process far smoother, which means you get to reap the benefits of ERP sooner.
IT Support
We said in the intro that there’s more to IT services than IT tech support. While this is true, you shouldn’t underestimate the benefits that a great IT support program can bring to your business.
IT support is vital. If something goes wrong with your employee’s computers or software, the quicker the issue gets resolved, the quicker they get back to work.
Yet relying on your IT staff too heavily can cause serious issues. IT support is a specialist field, and there’s a good reason for that: they will have to deal with many different issues throughout the average workday.
Put this workload onto your IT staff and they won’t have enough time to do other important tasks, which will lead to lower quality IT infrastructure at your business. This is why many companies choose to outsource IT support. Thanks to remote access technology, most issues can be solved without someone even having to come to your building, but that is also an option if necessary.
Outsourcing your IT support can save you money and allows your IT staff to focus on other key tasks.
Cloud Computing Services
Data storage is an important thing to consider. Where can you store files so that they remain secure, but are still easy to access? The answer is in the cloud.
However, not every cloud has a silver lining. If you store sensitive data on a public cloud, you’re putting your data in the hands of a company that may not have the most secure servers or APIs. The most sensible solution is to use a hybrid cloud or a private cloud, which allows for much stronger security.
However, setting up a cloud can be difficult, as can cloud migration. Hiring IT professionals to help you do this is highly recommended, as they will be able to ensure your cloud is as secure as necessary.
Update Management
Updating your computers is very important. Many updates are released to patch up security holes, and if you’ve not updated your machines, these holes are wide open.
Ensuring that your software and firmware are updated can be difficult, especially if you have a wide variety of computers on your network. This is why update management support can be very useful: they’ll take on the responsibility of keeping everything updated, and you can rest easy knowing that you’re in safe hands.
Network Monitoring
Network monitoring is an oft-misunderstood term. It doesn’t mean keeping an eye on the data that’s flowing in and out of your network. Instead, it means monitoring all of the different components of your network to make sure that there’s nothing out of the ordinary happening.
For instance, it can mean watch your switches to make sure that none of them are getting too hot, checking server resource usage, and more.
This type of monitoring can alert you if you’ve been infected by malware and not realized it, if you’re suffering a DDOS attack, or if you need to upgrade your network.
The Main Types of IT Services
We hope you’ve enjoyed this look at the main types of IT services. While there are many more types, these are the key ones that many businesses are taking advantage of. Why not consider using them yourself, especially if you only have a small IT staff?
For more interesting content like this, check out the rest of our site!