If you've ever had a computer crisis, you know that IT support is an essential component of any business.
Nothing is more devastating than losing months or even years of work because of a pesky email virus someone in the office decided to click on.
Long downtimes can actually destroy businesses, leading to joblessness and demoralisation for all concerned.
Reliable IT support can usually fix problems before they even begin and play an important role in educating workforces to prevent such mistakes from happening.
If you run a small business, though, it can be a challenge to hire a fully equipped and experienced in-house IT support team.
They need special equipment, high salaries, and may outweigh and outspend the rest of your employees with little to no actual daily advantage.
They also go on holidays and sometimes get sick, and if the expert you need is out, your company will have little recourse but to wait from him or her to get back and hope that the problem isn't a critical one.
Outsourcing IT support solves many of these problems.
For one thing, an IT company will always be ready for problems.
In London IT support can be with you in a matter of two hours or less, which should cause a huge sigh of relief in case of any serious issue.
Moreover, for small businesses, an IT company will have many more experts in a huge variety of fields than you're likely to be able to afford on your own.
These experts can install business phone systems, control antivirus protection, upgrade servers, install new software, and store your information on remote servers which are regularly backed up.
You won't have to rely on one person to run a back up each month; you'll have a whole company whose livelihoods depend on it.
Outsourced IT support will also mean that you get a range of experts in fields you might have never known you needed.
They can handle your email, your phone, your operating systems, your servers, your network, and your firewalls.
They can write and debug programs or create and execute an IT policy for your workplace.
All the worries you had about hiring new people to manage all these things will simply vanish, and at a lower cost than similar employees would warrant.
Your outsourced IT support will never take a holiday or get sick; they will always be there.
For small businesses, outsourced IT support simply seems like a must.
What better way to secure all of your data and ensure reliability for years to come? For a low monthly fee, the team will be at your beck and call any time you need them.
But you shouldn't need to call them very often; great IT companies will address problems before you even know they exist.
They'll set up your security systems and monitor them regularly; they'll back up your data for you and replace it when you need them to.
Your employees can focus on their jobs, not their computers or antivirus programs.
Outsourcing IT support can relieve worries and free up valuable work time for more important tasks.
For small companies, it's a fantastic idea.
Larger companies should evaluate their budgets before deciding to hire an in-house team or outsource for their needs.