IT has become so crucial to every business that your failure to embrace it is to your disadvantage. However, with IT in place, every business still needs a dedicated expert who will take charge and ensure the smooth running of all IT operations within the business. While this might sound “simple” for big businesses, SMEs and start-ups do not enjoy the comfort of having colossal budgets within their disposal to allow them to hire and retain such personnel (hiring an IT Manager on payroll is damn expensive!). Instead, many leaders of small and young businesses find themselves between a rock and a hard place as they try to balance using the little resources available and having such important expert knowledge that will give them an advantage in a highly competitive market.
This should never be the case. Instead of having a full-time IT manager on payroll, SMEs and start-ups can get the services of a virtual IT Manager, which will enable them to enjoy the same experience as other big businesses, at affordable rates.
So, how does a virtual IT manager benefit SMEs and small businesses in helping them achieve their business objectives?
Cost-saving: it is cheaper for SMEs and startups to get the services of a virtual IT Manager than to hire one on the payroll. Besides, getting the right person with the right experience is also not easy. In the absence of an IT manager, IT-related decisions are made by people who don’t have the necessary experience and knowledge which may end up being very costly. A Virtual IT Manager will use his vast experience and leadership to come up with strategic plans that are right for the business and most importantly, cost-effective
Gives you the peace of mind to focus on growing the business: The Virtual IT Manager will take the IT department on his shoulder so that you never have to worry about IT issues. This will save you a lot of time that you would spend worrying as you try to streamline your IT and allow you to focus on what matters most to you – business growth.
Information Protection: Most businesses only learn of the terrible place they are in whenever there is a data breach or a security-related incident that affects their systems. Now, data breaches can deal a heavy blow to your business’s hard-earned reputation and put your business’s future at risk. A Virtual IT Manager employs a proactive approach in ensuring real-time and continuous monitoring of your IT infrastructure to ensure that the business is protected.
Ensures business continuity: What happens when you’re having system disruptions or hardware failures and then discover that your in-house personnel cannot handle it? In normal cases, most businesses outsource experts who will try to fix the problem. This is a very time-consuming process since the person must first learn how your system operates, and without performing a Root Cause Analysis, simply fix the problem without digging into its actual cause. As this is happening, your business continues to incur losses due to downtime
In conclusion, a Virtual IT Manager plays a central role in the growth of SMEs and startups. You can always be sure of a higher Return On Investment while maintaining a competitive edge since you will spend most of your financial resources on advancing the business rather than staffing. Your business ends up enjoying the same benefits as other enterprise-level companies. Isn’t this fantastic?
