IT consulting outsources a portion of your business functions to a professional that is deeply familiar with all aspects of information technology (IT) and its related components.

Organizations engage with IT consultants to manage their IT operations and ensure that they are mitigating risks within their infrastructure. IT consultants can also recommend and implement upgrades to components of a company’s infrastructure.

Why Do Organizations Need IT Consulting?

As organizations grow, they reach different points in their dependence on technology. Very small organizations aren’t as dependent. Maybe they start out with a couple of computers and they’ve got some laptops and online applications and various things.

As they grow, however, businesses become much more dependent on technology. They reach a point where suddenly it’s no longer just a nice-to-have in their business, it’s actually a critical part of their organization.

We tend to see that transition happen around the 15- to 20-user mark. It varies for different types of organizations and industries, but once you hit the 15 to 20 user mark, people start to think differently about how they engage with the technology in their organizations.

Once technology becomes a critical part of the business, it’s important to find ways to leverage it effectively. Businesses that do so have a real advantage as they grow.

Choosing the Right Technology Partner for Your Business

We’ve heard clients express concern or unhappiness with previous IT vendors and the fact that they felt nickel-and-dimed by their services.

Part of that may be due to a lack of strategic planning. Maybe there were some upgrades that needed to be done, for example, and nobody made the client aware.

If an IT provider showed up one day, for example, and said we’re sorry, but your server has to be upgraded, and I know we didn’t talk about it, but we have to do it real soon, most business owners would be unhappy.

Our services, in contrast, are designed to bring some clarity and bring some surety to your IT costs. You should be able to tell what your technology spending will be this year, and for the next two to three years, with reasonable accuracy.

Sometimes there are major business changes that require a change in direction. When you have a good strategy and execute on it, however, your cost should remain pretty stable over the years.

Infrastructure Monitoring & Support

Effective IT consulting also includes some behind-the-scenes monitoring. For example, we monitor infrastructure to identify potential issues quickly before they impact your organization.

We also use our tools to automate parts of the infrastructure. If our monitoring system can identify a problem and run a script to resolve the issue, for example, the system will keep the issue from impacting your operations and you won’t even know that there was a problem.

There’s also support, of course. People call us when they have problems and we resolve those issues. But the real goal of proactive managed services is to get your business to a point where you don’t need to call support as much.

Proactive vs. Reactive IT Consulting Costs

Reactive “Break/Fix” IT Support

• When something happens, and you need some help, or if something breaks, you call your vendor and they either log in remotely or come on-site and solve the problem for you. During this time the technician also sees that things may need to be upgraded
• It’s all billed by the hour, and it’s largely a reactive service. as you’re waiting for something to happen.

Proactive “Fixed-Fee” IT Partnership

• Rather than just calling somebody when something is broken, you are handing off responsibility for IT to your vendor. 
• They take full responsibility for your IT infrastructure, from developing an IT strategy to regular maintenance to monitoring and support.

• Designed to get to a specific end result, where everything just works. 
• Risks are being managed and you’re able to leverage technology effectively within your organization.

Benefits of Proactive IT Consulting

There’s a lot of different components to this model. On the strategic side, we work with clients to help you figure out where your organization is going and how you can leverage technology to get there. Is there a new technology that you could be using? Are there better ways you could be leveraging your existing technology?

And then there’s regular maintenance that happens. Every month we go through your infrastructure to see how it stacks up against our best practices by asking questions like:

• What is the state of your technology today?
• How does it match up to our best practices for these systems?
• What are the best options for firewalls, backup systems, or security systems, and are we using them?
• How can we make sure that your infrastructure is in tip-top shape all the time?

We’re also going back and looking for trends and issues that you’re having. How can we make these issues go away permanently? Is there something we can do today that will eliminate that issue and keep it from ever coming back?

An IT Partnership with IT Consultant Experts

Our IT experts will work with you to design and create your future strategy for proactively maintaining and growing technology within your business. Learn more about our IT consulting services.

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