Before you write a book report, you need to read the book. Before you bake a cake, you need to get the ingredients. To start a car, you need a key. You’d never dive into a pool without filling it first. All of this seems obvious, so why do many businesses jump into IT strategies and solutions without consulting an expert first?
Consulting with an IT professional saves busy CEO’s and IT leaders a lot of money and guesswork and gives you a clear roadmap to your business’ successful future.
What Does Consulting Mean in the MSP World?
When you hear the term “consultation,” you probably think of someone sitting across the table from you giving you advice. In some cases, for instance at the Thanksgiving table, you may find the advice is unwelcome. Other times, like when an IT professional shows you how your IT strategies will help your business grow, you want to hear every word your consultant says.
Consulting plays an important part of your total IT strategy because it takes you from paper to planning and performance. Your IT consultation will evaluate the state of your current IT plans and infrastructure, balance it against your company’s business goals, and then present a plan that will align both to your advantage.
Your IT consultant will have technologies and strategies that would normally be out of reach for your own IT department. By partnering with an MSP that features consulting services, you are getting more than advice. You are hiring an entire package of expertise and experience you need to keep your small to medium-sized business relevant in a changing IT landscape.
How Will Consulting with an MSP Help My Business?
Advice is certainly nice, such as “don’t go outside with a wet head,” “don’t trust a growling dog with a wagging tail,” and “you really need to beef up your cybersecurity,” but what other benefits will consulting with an MSP give your business?
1. Control Your IT Budget
Consulting with an IT professional means a significant decrease in your operating expenses and related IT costs. IT consulting gives you strategies and plans that are designed exclusively for your business’ budget and needs, often aimed at cutting IT costs and increasing efficiency.
2. New Perspective
There are some things you do because you’re used to doing things in a certain way, and other things you do because you haven’t learned a better or more efficient way. Technology can be very similar; if your organization is using antiquated equipment or outdated software, it’s probably because it’s the way you’ve always done it and you don’t know any other way. Your IT consultant will be your unbiased third-party, looking in from the outside with suggestions and strategies to improve your technologies.
3. Your Staff Can Focus on Your Business
Your staff is probably already working hard to keep up with daily tasks, especially if the technology isn’t working the way it should be. No one has time to figure out malfunctioning hardware or confusing software applications. Consulting with an IT professional gets the results you need to free up your staff to do what they do best: focusing on your business.
4. Broader Base of Knowledge
All internal IT guys know things but finding qualified techs that have a broader knowledge base is hard. An MSP consulting professional is an expert across a wide range of subjects, providing you insight and solutions you have never considered, and explaining how these new approaches will help your business grow. IT consulting means having an expert on hand whenever you need them, without having to pay an extra salary every week.
5. Consulting Can Decrease Downtime
Believe it or not, having a network that crashes daily is not normal. Your IT consultant will assist you in evaluating outdated infrastructure, conflicting applications, slow file storage and retrieval, and other things that cause unexpected downtime. Your IT consultation can also include a backup and recovery strategy to restore data, as well as proactive system maintenance suggestions.
6. Streamlined Operations
IT consulting can help you identify IT processes that can be eliminated or combined with others to help you streamline operations. Consulting with an IT professional gives you solutions that fit your needs, as well as implementation and employee training. When your network is running smoothly, your business increases in its productivity, connectivity, and efficiency.
7. Better Cybersecurity Strategies
With an estimated 60% of all small to medium-sized business closing their doors forever within six months of a single cyberattack, cybersecurity is a big deal. Your IT consultation will help you identify gaps and vulnerabilities in your security, help you develop data back-up and recovery solutions, and create a cybersecurity strategy to stop cybercriminals long before they get a foothold in your network. Part of this consultation will include developing an effective cybersecurity awareness training to help you employees recognize malware and develop safer online habits to protect your systems.
8. Better, More Efficient Tools
Do you remember the days of house phones that plugged into the walls? Less than half of homeowners use them now, but some do still use them. Your technology is like that, too; you may be using outdated tools that still work but have been replaced with something far faster and more efficient. Consulting can help you identify the tech that is no longer relevant or helping your business move forward. The IT tools your consultant will replace them with are far more efficient than some you are currently using.
9. Consulting Boosts Productivity
When you improve your tech, you improve your productivity. Your IT consultant will help find you productivity boosters like mobile platforms, cloud technologies, centralized databases, automation, and more. Before you can choose these new technologies, your consultant will help you understand which are best for your business and how they can be implemented and managed.
Choosing the Right IT Consulting Firm
Every donut shop claims to have the best donuts around; how do you choose your shop? Likewise, every MSP claims to have the best IT consulting services, so how do you weed through the tall grass and find your best options?
As you’ve seen, consulting is about far more than just giving advice. A proper consulting firm will evaluate your needs and current tech, put together a strategy that is the right fit for your business and goals, show you how these strategies will be implemented, and then plan for future management and scalability of the strategies and solutions.
You’re trusting your IT consulting firm with a lot of sensitive information, and with your time. Here’s a few things a good consulting firm will do.
- Provide all credentials, certifications, and experience of your consultant
- Show flexibility in strategies and budgetary concerns
- Provide explanations regarding proposed IT changes, upgrades, or updates
- Provide reviews and samples of work they have done in the past
- Be friendly and approachable
- Make your small to medium-sized business as much of a priority as enterprises
Iconic IT Has the Consulting Professionals You Need
Iconic IT doesn’t believe in skimping on coverage for our clients. Unlike most MSPs that offer bare-bones services, we have plans as vast as the national parks they are named after. To us, anything else is underserving. We give you have the guidance and supplies you need, like a park ranger helping you through the forests and mountains of your IT issues and needs.
Iconic IT offers consulting services and business strategy planning for small to medium-sized businesses. We offer a one-hour consultation and dark web scan, a $695 value, for free with no risk or obligation. Iconic IT is also the home of the 30-day, 100% money back satisfaction guarantee.
Take Iconic IT consulting services for a test drive: schedule your free consultation and dark web scan today.
