IT, Information Technology, it’s an area of big organisations shrouded in mystery. It gets even more mysterious when you're researching about an IT consultant or Managed Service Providers - Outsourced IT providers who can take care of your IT needs offsite. To make matters worse a Google Search for Managed Services Melbourne yields around 2,930,000 results. So let’s delve into some facts that you might not already know.
- IT Specialists are just that, specialists.
With IT being such a vast landscape the term IT specialist is quite ambiguous. IT specialists will generally specialize in one area; this could be Cloud architecture, Security or a multitude of other areas. To assume that a single IT specialist can span the whole knowledge of all that is IT is nearly impossible. This one of the key reasons that businesses choose to outsource some of their IT needs as with an outsourced IT provider they are getting the wealth of knowledge of a specialized team, not just a solitary IT consultant.
- How many (ro)bots roam the internet's wild west?
Users of the internet are categorized into Humans (makes sense), good bots and bad bots. In years gone by the primary users of the internet were bots, meaning that over half of all web traffic was programs running for good and bad. This year saw a change in this trend with just over 50% of users being humans. So what does that mean? 29% of online traffic are bad bots think of this of an army of nefarious soldiers with one mission to attack your personal information. How can you be expected to stay ahead of these never sleeping bots that relentlessly try and get your information? If you have concerns in your business, you should definitely contact a Managed Services Provider near you.
- When you store something in the cloud, it’s still exists somewhere.
There is always a lot of talk about cloud and the incredible applications for your business, the thing that is overlooked is that your data is stored somewhere and it’s really quite impressive. They are known a server farms and the size of them is truly monumental, the location of them is often kept secure to keep information safe. But when you save a picture on your phone and it backs up to iCloud, chances are this information is being stored in a facility similar to that below.
- IT training should never finish.
Once you’ve settled with a Managed Services Provider that you like, or have an in house professional that knows your organisations vision inside and out, the training shouldnt end there. In a landscape where change happens so incredibly fast how are your staff expected to take advantage of the latest tools and accessories without the adequate training?
5.Cost
Something that you might have heard about IT in general is that the costs are too high. In Managed Services, this is something that is heard over and over again. However when you look at organisations that haven’t spoken to an IT consultant or engaged an IT services provider, they are not aware if their systems are operating effectively or if there is a cheaper alternative available. Rather than having someone in the organisation be a jack of all trades, patching holes in the IT ship as they appear, an IT provider looks at how to rebuild the ship without interrupting the existing foundation. This new IT infrastructure will be able to face whatever challenges the future holds and knowing that your IT partner can make changes and reenforce your ship when necessary should give you peace of mind that IT is actually a crucial business expense.
IT is a vast and complicated industry with organisations of all sizes requiring different services and providers to offer them. We’ve created a guide that you might find useful when looking at choosing a managed services provider and you can download it here.