Working with a managed IT service provider can have many cost-saving benefits for a business – from spending less on hardware, to leveraging innovative solutions or productivity and more efficient spending. Read on to see the top five benefits.
These days, technology is used extensively in business for many different gains. In particular, leveraging technology can help businesses optimize their IT budgets. This is because, as the world becomes increasingly reliant on technology, efficiency and innovation become increasingly expected, and legacy technology simply cannot keep up. We spoke with several IT companies about this. We spoke with one managed service company in London that have been supporting companies for over 12 years – the small business IT support London companies get from them has helped many clients streamline their IT budgets.
Let’s look at the top ways in which managed IT services can help save money…
- Material Cost Reduction
Leveraging technology in the right way can help businesses reduce and even eliminate certain material costs. We asked the managed IT services company how this is achieved, and they listed several things that contribute to lower material costs…
- Going Paperless – Nowadays, it is possible for businesses to do all of their document processing digitally, negating the need for hardcopies.
- Virtualising Servers – Instead of spending large sums every few years on new servers and other infrastructure hardware, businesses can instead migrate to the cloud to get scalable, cost-effective compute resources.
- Increased Productivity
If time is money, the time wasted is a significant overhead for businesses to address. By maximising time efficiency of processes, a business can get more for their time, and therefore maximise their profit margins. There are many examples of how managed IT services can help businesses increase productivity:
- Process Automation – Automating administrative tasks can free up many hours in the week for a business, giving employees more time back to spend on other tasks and work.
- Digital Project Management – Leveraging solutions like Microsoft Project, Basecamp, or Asana can help teams and managers streamline projects.
- Unified Communications – Combining all communication channels into a single platform helps users keep on top of their work and correspondence, contributing to better collaboration and more efficient communication both internally and externally.
- Reduce Capital Expenditures
Managed IT services are an operational expense, and many businesses use them to cover the entirety of their technology functions. This means that a business can feasibly turn a large chunk of their annual budget into OPEX, as opposed to CAPEX. Capital expenditures are less tax efficient because the value of assets decrease with time. Whereas managed IT services are an operational expense, and their value remains consistent, so businesses can claim the same amount back from their tax return each year.
- Streamline Budgeting
As mentioned above, managed IT services providers manage the entirety of a business’ IT estate for them. From a single invoice, business get complete assurance that their IT is being managed and supported. The other benefit of this is that it makes annual budgeting much simpler because a sizeable portion of a business’ operational expenses can be lumped together into a single outgoing. Furthermore, it can also help to iron out various expense fluctuations that can occur – such as when a business experiences hardware or system failures, etc.
- Leverage the Cloud
The company we spoke to has been providing IT support Croydon and London businesses have been using for over 12 years. In that time, the cloud has grown to become one of the most valuable technologies that a business can leverage. Many managed IT service providers specialise in helping businesses digitally transform into a cloud-first company – the benefits of which include having better utilization of resources (corresponding to more efficient spending); reduced power costs; lower staff costs (because workers can get more done, and work more flexibly); and become more resilient without spending money on redundancy.
