22 Mar You Know You Want IT – The Compelling Reasons for IT Support
There are still many SME businesses that shy away from investing in IT support, and prefer to opt for a self-managed option. The reasons for this vary, but often it’s a lack of understanding or perception around paying out a monthly fee to protect things that may or may not go wrong. What is surprising, is that almost every employee of the company pays out regularly to protect themselves against motor accidents, theft or damage to their home or possessions or even their own demise.
In addition, companies that are hesitant to Spend on IT support, still have no issues in paying for public and employee liability, but which is more likely to happen, a computer failure or a wrongful dismal tribunal case?
I hope by this point you are beginning to think a little differently and if the above resonates with you, maybe it’s time to have a more open mind about the positive outcomes and value support can bring to your business.
Do you Love Risk? – or Would You Prefer to be Risk Averse?
As previously mentioned, we personally take steps to mitigate risk that could impact our own safety and the well-being of our family. Unless you’re a complete risk taker who enjoys base jumping or hanging off tall buildings with one hand. Then most of us ordinarily air on the side of caution. The risks faced are different, but ultimately bad decisions and calamitous events will impact the wellbeing of a business and in extreme cases kill it.
Source:TowerGate Insurance research
The risks faced by business are becoming more complex especially as technology empowers most things we do. From applications to manage our day, our communication both electronically and verbally. This new digital world has increased the dangers businesses face online on average 40% YOY. Cyber Threats are steadily growing, becoming more complex and targeting more vulnerable SMEs who don’t have the skills, or understanding around IT to protect themselves. So, the switch has been to get less money but from more companies who and its easier as the security is not in place.
Cyber Crime cost UK Business £29 billion in 2016* with the most popular attack vector being Phishing followed by hacking. In fact, 2016 saw 40% of UK Businesses fall victims of cyber-attack and a huge 60% of Small businesses suffered a breach or attack.
It’s becoming a lucrative business model and for just $25-$100 you can buy yourself a password stealing trojan DIY Kit.
Add to this landscape the new EU General Data Regulations that come into force in May and business risks increase.
It is reported that there will be a two-tiered sanction regime with lesser sever incidents subject to a maximum fine of £7.9m or 2% of global Turnover or serious incidents at £17m or 4% of global turnover. If you have not invested in keeping IT up to date and data secure, you are working with big business risks.
To give you a real-world example of the new risks. Tesco Bank suffered a data breach in which as many as 9000 customers lost money from their account. Under the impending GDPR rules, the fine Tesco would face is £1.9 Billion. The current maximum is £500k.
How Will IT Support Help
A good Managed IT service provider will take time to fully understand your systems and processes before kicking anything off. This means identifying the areas that pose the most risk to your working. They ensure that you have the right protection and levels of security to help prevent Hacking, Malware, and Ransomware. At Netcom we even offer employee training to ensure everyone can recognise and combat the risks.
Ensuring your systems are updated with the latest patches and updates is also something an IT service Provided will handle. It’s great that 7 of the machines are fully updated, but it only takes one that doesn’t have the right patching, to let an infection attack the others. Managed service providers ensure that your systems are updated and are as healthy as possible reducing the risk and cost associated with downtime of employees, website, and services.
Another key area of risk is “The best of intention” scenario. Often in smaller businesses, the management of the IT is by someone who is the most tech-savvy, but it is not their primary role. You cannot expect an accountant with good IT skills to be an expert on technology, this should be left to those who train and work with the technology every day. By the same token, you cannot also expect an IT consultant to run up a good profit and loss statement either.
This means IT will often be set up and configured with the best of intention, rather than best practice or industry recommendations. Apparently, the path to some fiery place is lined with best intentions and this is a risk that can be overcome. This lack of skills can be a challenge and the cost to the business of training and have employees out of their chosen role can be costly.
So you need to weigh up the pros and cons but we believe when looking at the cost of alleviating risk and making your business more focused on what it does and reduce the time of lost working due to technical issues, this one reason alone is compelling enough to make even the most staunch business owner start to consider the merits of outsourced IT support.