What to look for in an IT support provider in Utah

IT support has evolved over the years. While back in the day, you had to wait hours or even days for a technician to come on site and fix your tech issues, you can now simply search online for a support team near you and have them troubleshoot issues in real time.

If you’re looking to streamline operations, reduce costs, and leverage specialized expertise, outsourcing IT services can be a strategic decision for your business. However, don’t just settle for any IT provider. When considering outsourcing, it’s crucial to find an IT provider that aligns with your business goals and can meet your specific requirements.

Here are the key qualities that Utah businesses should look for in an IT provider.

Expertise and experience

An IT provider’s level of expertise and experience should be on top of your list of criteria, as this is a good barometer of how well they can serve your needs. Look for a company that has a proven track record in delivering IT services, with experience in your industry.

Utah-based businesses may benefit from partnering with providers familiar with the local technology landscape and regulatory requirements specific to the state. For instance, if you belong to a regulated industry like legal, you may want to work with an IT provider that is familiar with Utah’s regulatory sandbox program, which allows businesses to apply for exemptions to regulation. Try to read reviews of the company’s services on local review sites and determine whether the service quality they delivered to previous clients is satisfactory.

Range of services

Ensure the IT provider can address all your specific tech needs, whether it be network management, cybersecurity, data backup and recovery, cloud computing, and/or software development. A managed IT services provider that can offer a comprehensive suite of services will allow you to consolidate your IT requirements with a single provider, resulting in efficiency and ease of communication.

Scalability

Your IT needs will evolve as your business grows, so you should also look for an IT provider that offers scalable services. Determine whether they have the flexibility to scale their services should you require additional support during peak periods or need to accommodate changes in your business structure.

Proactive approach to support

A reliable IT provider should be able to actively monitor your systems, identify potential issues before they become critical, and implement preventive measures to minimize disruptions. This proactive stance can help mitigate risks, enhance system uptime, and improve overall productivity. In other words, make sure to partner with a proactive, not reactive, IT provider.

Strong security measures

Data security is a great concern for any business today, so assess an IT provider’s capability to implement robust security measures that can protect your sensitive data from a variety of threats. They should have well-defined protocols for data backup, disaster recovery, and regular security audits, which are critical to bolstering your cyber defenses and the integrity of your operations.

Flexibility and customization

Every business is unique, so it’s best to team up with an IT provider that can tailor their services to your specific needs. An adaptable provider should be willing to understand your business processes and offer customized solutions that align with your goals, preferences, and budget constraints.

Related reading: 5 signs you require an MSP

Transparent communication

In every outsourcing partnership, effective communication is a must. Therefore, the IT provider you choose should have clear channels of communication and be responsive to your inquiries and concerns. They should provide regular updates on the status of ongoing projects, promptly address any issues or changes, and maintain transparency throughout the collaboration.

Local presence and support

Consider partnering with an IT provider that has a local presence in the state such as NetWize. This can be beneficial for several reasons, such as having easier access to on-site (and remote) support, a better understanding of local technology infrastructure, and familiarity with local regulations that may affect your business operations.

By considering the qualities mentioned above, you can find an IT support provider in Utah that can solve your daily IT woes and help drive your technology initiatives forward. Call NetWize today.

5 Biggest MSP red flags to watch out for

Managed IT services providers (MSPs) in Salt Lake City offer varying levels of service. Some are thorough and will help you maximize your business’s IT systems, while others may cut corners and fail to deliver the results you need. Therefore, you must choose your MSP carefully. To help you make the best decision for your business, watch out for these red flags when choosing an MSP.

The MSP charges you for services you don’t need

Unless you belong to the tech industry yourself, it’s likely that you don’t have extensive skills or knowledge about IT. Some providers know this and will take advantage of you by pressuring you to sign up for services you don’t actually need. For example, they might say your system requires a certain type of software when the one you’re currently using is enough for your needs or that you need to purchase additional licenses when you don’t.

Make sure you have a rough idea of your business’s IT needs before consulting with a prospective provider so you aren’t caught off guard. Ask for a second or third opinion from other MSPs or IT experts if you’re unsure about the advice you’re getting. A reputable MSP will assess your needs first and will be upfront about which services are essential for your business and which ones can wait. They’ll also explain why certain upgrades are necessary so you can make the most informed decision possible.

A reputable MSP will assess your needs first and will be upfront about which services are essential for your business and which ones can wait.

They don’t communicate clearly and frequently

Ongoing communication is key to a successful relationship between your business and your MSP. After all, your MSP is responsible for keeping your business’s IT systems up and running, so they must be proactive in inquiring about the state of your IT infrastructure. If they don’t communicate with you, certain tech issues may not be discovered and resolved on time, if at all.

Ideally, an MSP should assign someone from their team to act as a dedicated point of contact for your company. It is this personnel’s job to regularly check on your company and coordinate all developments and issues that require attention.

They have few or negative customer reviews

Online reviews can tell you so much about an MSP, including how they treat their clients and whether their services match your business’s needs. Of course, very few or nonexistent reviews could simply mean that the MSP is new. However, you’d want to entrust something as important as your business’s tech to a provider with a track record of quality service, so choose an MSP with numerous and consistently positive reviews.

They respond too slowly

Downtime can have severe and costly consequences for your business, so your MSP must be able to mitigate or immediately resolve it. Before committing to an MSP, ask about their turnaround times and see how fast they can respond to your concerns over the phone.

On a related note, it might be better to choose a provider within your area. Although MSPs can manage most of your IT needs remotely, hardware issues and certain tech hiccups may require an on-site visit. In such cases, working with an MSP within your locale helps resolve problems quickly.

They can’t help you with cybersecurity insurance

Data breaches are occurring more frequently. In fact, the Identity Theft Resource Center’s 2021 Annual Data Breach Report shows that there were 68% more data breaches in 2021 than in the previous year. This makes it all the more important for your business to secure cybersecurity insurance, as it protects you from the financial risks associated with cyber incidents.

Ask your prospective MSP if they offer cybersecurity insurance. If they don’t, inquire if they can help you apply for the insurance policy. Reputable MSPs will at least know what you need to secure such a policy and point you to a trustworthy insurance provider.

Your IT systems are crucial to your business’s survival and success, so you need to leave them in the hands of an MSP like [company_short]. Our team of IT specialists has years of experience in addressing the needs of Utah businesses like yours. Talk to us today to get the best IT services for your business.

What are co-managed IT services, and does your business need it?

Many businesses rely on contractors and service providers to accomplish tasks they can’t or won’t do themselves. To illustrate, a restaurant in Salt Lake City can bake their own bread. However, the process takes up too much time, effort, and space in their small kitchen, so they source their bread from a nearby baker instead.

In the same manner, small- and medium-sized businesses (SMBs) like yours may have in-house IT staff. However, your team may be too busy with time-consuming tasks or too small to take on big projects that are critical to business growth. Fortunately, this is where co-managed services come in.

What are co-managed IT services?

Co-managed IT is a service model wherein a managed IT services provider (MSP) augments the capabilities of an existing internal IT team. If you have not yet established your own IT team or department, you can outsource all your IT to an MSP, which is a different arrangement altogether.

In a co-managed setup, both the MSP and your internal staff align themselves toward accomplishing the company’s goals. This means that the in-house team can dedicate itself to tasks that it can accomplish effectively and efficiently, while the MSP can fulfill any and all remaining business requirements.

When would your business need co-managed IT?

This service model is ideal for your business if:

Your IT department is short-staffed and/or lacks other resources

Your staff may already be swamped with tasks like addressing hardware and software issues, tweaking cloud configurations, and applying app updates and patches. If they don’t have the bandwidth for other tasks like designing and implementing a cybersecurity strategy, then turning to an MSP is more efficient and cost-effective than seeking, hiring, and training new staff. This is especially true if the need for additional personnel is only temporary.

Moreover, a top-notch MSP updates its tech resources to remain competitive. This means that you as a client can enjoy effective tech without having to completely invest in it yourself. For example, let’s say you need your network to be monitored. MSPs like NetWize can offer the latest and best monitoring tools for watching over your entire infrastructure.

In a co-managed setup, both the MSP and your internal staff align themselves toward accomplishing the company’s goals.

Your IT staff lacks the required expertise

Even if you’re not short on IT staff, their combined experience and expertise may still fall short of what your organization needs. For instance, they might not know how to create and implement backup solutions, business continuity strategies, and disaster recovery plans. Thankfully, reputable managed services providers have full rosters of IT specialists whose collective capabilities are both broad and deep. This means that they can cover any skills gaps your team may have.

You have a new project

Let’s say that you want your IT team to develop bespoke business applications for your company. To have bandwidth for app development projects, your team needs to let go of day-to-day responsibilities that your company relies on to operate smoothly. In scenarios like this, an MSP can take on those duties so that business operations can continue without a hitch.

What are the pros and cons of co-managed IT?

Here are the things you need to consider about co-managed IT services:

Pros

Quick implementation
You get to fulfill business requirements faster than if you were to look for, hire, and onboard in-house IT staff. Furthermore, short-term projects are more feasible since you can procure IT services on an as-needed basis.
Fewer items to manage
All you need to do is focus on your own deliverables and rely on your IT partner to deliver results. You don’t need to inspect their processes, manage their day-to-day productivity, or watch out for cyberthreats as you would on your own network.
Availability of new tech
MSPs stay on top of the latest tech trends, which means that you, as their client, could benefit from their tech investments.
Round-the-clock support
Unless your IT staff works in shifts, your IT department is only operational during office hours. This means that urgent problems that occur during off-hours will have to wait till shift starts. It’s also possible that some of your staff are on holiday or sick leave, so there are fewer people available to resolve your IT issues. Thankfully, you can avoid such scenarios by leveraging the 24/7/365 support provided by MSPs.
Improved morale of IT staff
Bogging IT personnel down with rote and mundane IT tasks may bore them and provide no opportunities for learning new skills or progressing in their careers. By having an MSP handle those necessary but tedious tasks for you, you increase your IT team’s bandwidth to take on more challenging and rewarding tasks.

Cons

Upfront fees
Availing of co-managed IT services does involve having to pay upfront fees. However, when you compare this to the costs you would incur if you were to hire your own IT professionals and purchase additional hardware and software, you’ll enjoy savings in the long-term. This is because you only have to pay for the IT resources and services you use.
Compatibility issues
Differences in IT systems and methodologies may result in incompatibilities between your business and your MSP, though MSPs would normally identify and propose to rectify alignment issues prior to agreeing to a co-managed arrangement with your company.

Incompatibility may also take the form of a mismatch between what your business needs and what an MSP could offer in terms of tech tools, expertise, and bandwidth. To illustrate, an MSP startup with five technicians and only 10 years of experience between them might not be able to support the needs of a local eCommerce company that’s on the verge of going global.

If limited IT resources are keeping your business from growing, then you must turn to NetWize for co-managed IT services. Send our IT consultants a message or call 801-747-3200 today.

Does your business really need managed IT services?

On a sunny Salt Lake City day, you receive an SMS alert about an upcoming doctor’s appointment. Since you’re already on your phone, you enter “bike grease” in your web browser and find that your local shop carries the brand you’ve heard of but have difficulty remembering. On your way to that shop, you see people receiving groceries from a curbside pickup.

All of these things have one thing in common: they are powered by IT. How do these small businesses get to be so tech-savvy? you might wonder. Can they afford their own IT departments?

We’re here to tell you that unless a small- to medium-sized business (SMB) is a tech startup or a firm in the IT sector, it’s likely that they don’t have an internal IT team. Most SMBs take a DIY approach to implementing IT projects (i.e., without bona fide IT experts), but wiser business owners partner with a managed IT services provider (MSP). Here are three reasons why availing managed IT services is one of the best decisions you’ll ever make for your company.

1. You get an IT department, but at the fraction of the cost

The high demand for but low supply of IT professionals makes their salaries some of the biggest across all industries. SMBs can barely afford them, much less compete with larger enterprises that offer employee benefits such as a free gourmet lunch. And even if an SMB snags their own IT specialist, that employee is likely to move to greener pastures sooner or later, never mind how much that business spent on hiring and training them.

However, for less than what you’ll pay one full-time IT employee, you can avail of the services of an entire IT team when you work with an MSP. This team is composed of IT professionals with varied specializations and decades of experience between them. This means that if you have an IT concern, they’re more likely to be able to handle it than a lone employee would.

2. You gain access to a wide range of services that help your business grow

MSPs are a one-stop shop for all of your IT needs, such as:

IT consultation and strategy implementation

Top-notch MSPs provide excellent IT consultation services. They’re able to assess what your business needs, both in the short and long term, and create and implement an IT strategy that will aid and accelerate your company toward its goals. They’re also partners with leading IT solutions providers such as Microsoft and know which offerings will best serve your business.

Data security

Hackers have no qualms about stealing money wherever they can take it for the least amount of effort. And since many small-business owners mistakenly think their companies are too small to be targeted by cybercriminals, they likely don’t invest in cybersecurity, which makes their companies low-hanging fruit for hackers.

Beyond malicious actors, other factors, such as faulty network configurations and calamities, may cause your business to suffer costly downtime.

MSPs help SMBs thwart cybercriminals by implementing the latest and best cybersecurity measures. They also ensure uptime and smooth operations via 24/7 IT support, as well as mitigate the effects of natural and man-made disasters via disaster recovery and business continuity planning.

3. You gain access to the latest and best that IT has to offer

Investing in IT can take up a lot of resources. If you had to do it yourself, you’ll likely have to spend a lot of money on hardware, software, and IT specialists. And when there are advancements in technology, adapting to change can be difficult because it will entail adopting more tech and/or doing away with the IT assets that you’ve paid a lot of money for. If your business is not in tech, then this is highly impractical.

Fortunately, MSPs are in tech. Since they spread their costs across many clients, they can continually invest in the latest gadgets and IT solutions so that they’ll always be able to provide the best service possible. MSPs also stay on top of the latest developments in the world of tech so that you can adjust to disruptive changes in a timely manner and take advantage of their benefits as soon as possible. To illustrate, MSPs who are also licensed Microsoft vendors can advise their clients on how to leverage the Android On-Demand Chat Translation feature in Microsoft Teams.

4. You gain the ability to prepare for and comply with all the data regulations that apply to your business

Different industries have different data rules and regulations, such as HIPAA for the healthcare sector and PCI DSS for businesses that process card transactions. Additionally, different regions and states have their own data privacy regulations. For instance, the Golden State has the California Consumer Privacy Act, Canada has the Personal Information Protection and Electronic Documents Act, and the European Union has the General Data Protection Regulation. And, as of this writing, 10 states are likely to pass their own version of data privacy legislation this year.

Complying with the regulations of one state is hard enough, but if you do business across many states, then compliance is a nightmare. Top-notch MSPs like NetWize stay on top of the shifting techno-legal landscape to help businesses meet all the requirements of every applicable data regulation.

5. You gain a proactive team whose interests are in line with yours

Some business owners believe that they’re saving money by availing IT services only when things break and need fixing. This practice actually costs them more because of one or more of the following reasons:

The business suffers downtime while waiting for their IT guy to arrive.
Their IT guy might lack the knowledge to fix the problem, so the business will end up waiting so long for nothing.
The business pays their IT guy by the hour. If the IT guy provides the option to either go for a quick fix or to resolve underlying tech issues and prevent problems from recurring, the client will often opt for the quick fix.
The business pays the IT guy whenever there are IT issues to fix. That means mo’ problems, mo’ money for the IT guy!

MSPs, on the other hand, are partners in their clients’ endeavors. If their clients’ companies grow because of the IT services they provide, then those clients will do more business with them. Conversely, if the firms they serve start to fail, then MSPs may ultimately lose those clients. Therefore, the best MSPs are the ones that nip IT issues in the bud before these become a major cause for concern. For a predictable cost, these MSPs grant you all the upside of IT and handle all of its downsides for you, which lets you focus on doing what you do best: your business.

To learn more about how NetWize can be of service to your company, send us a message or call us at 801-747-3200 today.