As businesses become increasingly digitised and network dependent, the management and support of IT systems is becoming more complex. Enterprises have to make sure their IT and communications infrastructure works efficiently and is secure. Having the right IT support and services in place is key to achieving this.
Larger businesses can often afford to maintain in-house IT teams to make sure the company’s IT infrastructure runs smoothly, but resourcing costs are significant. It is also a recognised challenge to recruit and retain a large enough team with the right skill-set to cover the wide and ever-evolving breadth and depth of today’s rapidly changing technology.
Whilst smaller organisations and SMEs demand the same quality of IT support services, it is often not practical or affordable to have a full-time, dedicated in-house tech team or IT manager.
As a result, forward-thinking businesses are turning to expert managed services providers, like Excalibur, that have the up-to-date skills, experience and expertise to meet their IT support needs and strengthen their digital workplace.
Managed service options offer local IT support as well as a full range remote service options. The flexible nature of these support agreements means SMEs can get the IT service and support they require, when and where they need it, at rates that make sense.
The Hybrid Workplace Model and IT Support
Businesses have not only transformed digitally over the last decade, but seen a dramatic move towards a remote, home based working. Whilst there was already a shift in the number of people based from home (full or part time), using day hired office space or renting coworking spaces, Coronavirus has significantly sped up the move to home working.
This presents even more challenges for an IT department in terms of delivering digital efficiency and network security as well as making sure headquarters and employees have the right equipment at home and in the office.
A managed service provider is able to work like a local IT support function for employees wherever they are based. Not just as a help desk but for larger projects such as migration to cloud based multimedia applications like Microsoft 365, Teams and Sharepoint. These platforms offer whole range of collaborative communications tools that help create a positive virtual team environment.
As the Gartner Trend Insight Report: How to Strengthen Your Digital Workplace Program to Sustain Digital Transformation, says; ‘Optimising the employee experience is critical to driving higher digital dexterity, which in turn is an essential ingredient for successful digital transformation initiatives.’
Benefits of using IT Support Services
Companies clearly need to maintain and support their IT systems to help deliver commercial and operational success. Benefits of buying in IT support and services are wide ranging, from everyday IT management to longer term planning for the future. IT never stand still. Key benefits:
• Freeing up management time, so management can concentrate on running and innovating their business, not spending time solving IT issues.
• Keep control of company employee overheads whilst accessing the IT skills, talent and expertise required on an ‘as needed’ basis.
• Provides SMEs and smaller organisations with great access to a full orbit of IT support skill sets and experience that would be difficult to achieve in a smaller in-house team
• Creating a tailor-made IT support package, specifically designed to meet the unique needs and budget of your business
• Regular monitoring of IT equipment and services to ensure potential problems that could disrupt business don’t occur e.g. checking for slow internet connectivity speeds and updating security patches
• An efficient help desk and service desk makes sure any issues – whether its broken hardware, connectivity failure or a lost mobile phone – are dealt with promptly, with minimum of disruption to the business and employees
• Greater ability to ensure your organisation is compliant with Industry recognised accreditations for IT and security
• People working from home have access to IT expertise
• The ability to parachute in extra IT resource when required for special projects
• Access to knowledgable advice in to help you with IT roadmap planning and budget forecasting
A full package of IT support services
Excalibur offers a full range of IT support and services for organisations looking for local IT support companies. With expertise in mobile, fixed telco and IT we encompasses; help desk, service desk, cloud, security, connectivity, network infrastructure, mobile communications, hardware, software, servers, IoT, planning and consultancy.
All IT support and service contracts are tailored to meet the need and budget of each customer and performance tied into our above industry standard Service Level Agreements. Strict adherence to our SLAs and our policy to gain customer feedback, makes sure customers receive the support they require and are happy.
Looking for Local IT Support?
We have a team of front-line engineers who support over 4,000 businesses, schools and organisations across the South and South West of the UK.
Customers speak to knowledgeable engineers from the outset of any case. This ensures they receive excellent first-time fixes with minimal escalation required.
All our front-line engineers are trained to a high level in the very latest technologies including certifications across Service Management, Apple, Cisco, Dante, Mitel PBX and a full range of Microsoft technologies and applications.
They not only provide customers with the day-to-day IT resources they need but enable them to leverage the benefits new technologies like the Cloud and IoT.
Our specialist infrastructure department focusses on more complex issues and special projects and is responsible for developing value add enhancements that drive customer benefit and process improvements
How Much Should You Be Spending on IT Support Services?
When a business looks at buying in local IT support, they must make sure they are using their budget effectively to meet business objectives. Spending right is more important than spending more.
A trusted service provider will help a business assess the level of support needed by undertaking a review of their current IT system. The results will determine the type and level of IT support required.
At Excalibur we have two main pricing propositions:
Managed IT Service:
• Clients charged on a per month basis. This includes active monitoring services, help desk support, updating of security and more.
Pay as You Use:
• Clients can literally buy blocks of IT support hours which are used in 15-minute increments. This often works well for smaller companies who do not require proactive IT monitoring services.
• Charging per server. Excalibur proactively monitors and manages a company’s servers.
