How the Right IT Consultant Can Help Your Business Reach its Goals
The more technology you have or need to run your business, the more valuable an IT consultant will be. Businesses that are growing or are looking for ways to operate more efficiently would greatly benefit from an IT consultant. These are pivotal points where having the right technology in place can facilitate growth, reduce overhead, and provide a competitive edge.
What is an IT Consultant?
An IT consultant is a technology expert who helps with the strategic planning of your technology to support your business goals. It’s the IT consultant’s job to have broad knowledge of business IT systems and an understanding of their client’s industry. The IT consultant works closely with the business to evaluate current systems and serve as a guide when it comes to upgrades and what technology will best move the business forward.
Ideally, your IT consultant is unbiased, with no incentive to sell you any specific technology. Their mission should be to ensure your business has the right systems in place for your size, needs, goals, and budget.
What are IT Consulting Services?
IT Consulting services should involve big picture thinking across your operations, and strategic planning for the future, in terms of how business technologies will best serve your needs and goals. It’s a look into your business operations and existing systems to determine if your technology is serving you well, if changes are recommended, and what technologies you may need going forward.
Consulting is different from IT service & support, which is typically managed by a Managed Service Provider (MSP), a third party who maintains and supports your entire IT infrastructure. Some MSPs, such as mPowered IT, may also provide IT consulting services. We include a basic level of consulting services as part of our Enable program, and also offer more involved consulting to our customers as an additional service whenever they need it.
The Benefits of IT Consulting Services
Unless your business is IT services, managing your IT needs is “off mission.” In other words, the more time your managers and staff spend dealing with IT issues, research, procurement, upgrades, etc., the less time they have to focus on the mission of the business. Procuring less than ideal IT systems can drain resources from the business rather than boost productivity.
When you hire a good IT consultant, you have the guidance of an expert. Your time into the process is reduced – it’s quality investment time, discussing your business needs with the consultant, and making decisions based on sound information. Your business is critically dependent on its IT systems, so it makes sense to have real expertise in procuring and managing them.
Benefits of IT consulting include:
Expertise
There is just no substitute for knowledge and expertise. Having an IT consultant eliminates the need for you to spend time exploring all available options. Instead, you’re presented with curated choices.
A lot of IT consultants are very tech oriented and will be enamored by certain technologies. They want to steer you to what they like. Some IT consultants are more sales oriented and want to sell you specific technologies based on their sales goals. At mPowered IT, we view technology from a business perspective. It’s not about how exciting a new technology is, or what we want to sell, but what technology makes the most sense for your specific business. We do not have any incentive to sell specific technology products. Our mission is to Enable Your Mission.
Potential Cost Savings
A good IT consultant will consider your size and budget when advising on technology. This is an area for potential cost savings, as you’re less likely to buy into technologies that are more than what you need. And, with the right technology in place, there’s potential for savings in operational costs.
Faster Project Completion
Having the right technology in place should facilitate every step of your processes, from sales to service to final delivery, and all the accounting and communications in between.
Increased Productivity
Often productivity is what suffers with outdated systems or having the wrong systems in place. An IT consultant looks for ways to boost your productivity with any technology decision.
Improved Processes
Small business especially struggle with processes. What worked in the beginning when they were very small, is no longer efficient, but changing is complicated. An IT consultant can review processes and recommend technology to smooth them out for your current workloads, and have you better prepared for growth.
Skills Transfer
Your IT consultant will share knowledge, best practices, and facilitate training on systems so your team will be able to run with any new technologies.
Reduced Security Risk
Outdated systems pose a cybersecurity risk, especially if there is no one managing the security. An IT consultant will have cybersecurity top of mind with any system or update.
What IT Consulting Services Does mPowered IT Provide?
We provide basic IT consulting services to clients who are receiving IT service and support through our Managed IT Services plan. That begins with our initial free consultation and continues throughout our relationship. The higher level consulting is available to all our customers on a project basis. Any business that’s experiencing issues with their current IT systems or provider, or has plans for growth, would benefit from mPowered IT Managed Services and the consulting that comes with it.
IT Assessment
The first thing is to assess your current IT environment. We are very proud of our “We love you as you are” philosophy for doing business. That is, we’re not going to look at your systems and tell you to throw it all out and start over. It will be an honest assessment from a business standpoint, what is working for you, what could be better, what may become problematic going forward.
IT Strategy and Planning
This is where we drill down into your business needs and goals so we can recommend technologies that will best support them.
Security Risk Assessments
This is, unfortunately, something small business do not take as seriously as they should. Small businesses have become a prime target for cybercriminals because they’re such an easy target. We recommend a full security assessment, including penetration testing (ethical hacking) so we can spot the vulnerabilities that the cybercriminals are seeing.
Governance, Risk & Compliance
If you’re in a highly regulated industry, such as healthcare or insurance, your IT systems are required to be in compliance. Your data is required to have a high level of security. We are familiar with HIPAA and other industry regulations and can advise you on where you may be in danger of falling out of compliance.
Cloud and Data Migration Planning
Most small businesses do not have an adequate data backup plan. Likely what you have would not save you from losing a day’s worth of work in an outage, or all your data in the event of a disaster. We recommend a data backup plan, ideally in the Cloud, so regardless of what happens around you, your data is safe.
Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Planning
IT consulting can answer the question you don’t want to ask – what would happen if disaster struck? How would you recover? From a technology perspective, you can have your business systems, software, and data in the Cloud so your technology is still available and working for you from anywhere.
What is the mPowered IT Consulting Process?
Most of our IT consulting happens when a business comes to us for IT service and support, to be their Managed Services Provider. As part of onboarding and transitioning their systems to our care, we begin acting as their CIO, a partner, looking out for their best technological interests. Once we’re working together, the consulting is ongoing. We’re always available to answer their questions as part of their service plan. There are also times when our customers need more in-depth research or guidance for a specific project or opportunity.
Why Choose mPowered IT for IT Services and Consulting
mPowered IT is a small business advocate. Our services and plans are designed and customized to meet the needs of SMBs. Most IT service plans and IT consulting are geared toward larger companies, which are not usually a good fit and certainly not very affordable. Any business who needs a trusted IT partner to work with them, to treat them like their business is top priority, and wishes they could delegate the responsibility of their IT environment to an IT expert, should contact mPowered IT. Switching IT companies is easier than it may seem, and it can save a lot of time and money going forward.
For more information call 678-389-6200 or click here to speak with an expert.