IT support is broken. These 4 things need fixing.

So what have we learned recently? Well for one thing, if there’s something that’s not quite right within a business, a global pandemic is a spectacularly effective way of bringing it to the surface. 

Judging by the comments of business owners who’ve approached us for help recently, this is certainly true of IT support. 

Even before Covid hit, these business owners weren’t exactly singing the praises of their IT support partners. Stuff like a lack of transparency, slow response times and out-of-date tech provide plenty of reasons to be annoyed. 

So what has changed? As just one example, if you received an unexpected bill for IT support a year ago, you would probably put it down as a minor annoyance. These days though, faced with tighter budgets, one or two extra invoices might be just enough to tip you into a cash flow crisis. 

We’re discovering that last year’s little frustrations surrounding IT have turned into this year’s business-critical problems. Things need to be done differently - and here are four areas where change is needed most. 

1. The way we work has shifted. IT support needs to keep up 

At first, working from home (WFH) was seen by most companies as a temporary workaround. As the lockdown was announced, laptops were dug out of cupboards, virtual private networks (VPNs) were hastily configured and people carried on through a process of trial and error. 

But then came the realisation that WFH doesn’t have to be second best. Employees are big fans of it, and the work is still getting done. In fact, 9 in 10 UK CEOs say that they expect it to become a long-term thing. The concept of ‘blended working’ is especially attractive; the idea that employees will move fluidly between home and office, depending on their preferences and organisational needs. 

But of course, just because staff members happen to be away from the office for some or all of the time, it doesn’t make their IT support needs disappear. In fact, the opposite is true, with WFH giving rise to specific concerns that need to be addressed. The question is, how well is your IT support partner addressing them? 

Low-spec laptops aren’t the best option for working with power-hungry business software day in, day out. You can maybe live with slow VPN connections for a month or two, but do you really want performance issues to be a permanent thing? Is your data accessible to the people who need it? Too often, support partners are way too slow in helping companies address these basics. 

Security is another area that demands attention. The rule is that if your IT architecture undergoes a big change, you should always review your disaster recovery plan to make sure it’s still up to scratch. Way too many SMEs (39% according to Ponemon) don’t even have a plan in place in the first place. I suspect that many businesses haven’t tested their plan since the pandemic hit. 

Support partners need to start being proactive in all of these areas. 

2. Businesses need help in absorbing hardware costs 

It’s a fact of life: after a few years, workstations, laptops and various other devices and equipment all need replacing. And if you’re making the switch over to blended working, there’s further unwelcome news: portable devices tend to have a significantly lower lifespan than desktops. 

Are users complaining of frozen screens? Is the ‘turn it off and on again’ method being used a little too often? Do you get a ‘computer says no’ response when trying to install the latest versions of business software? These are all signs that you’re due an overhaul. 

When funds are low, it can be especially tempting to take a make-do-and-mend approach by asking staff to struggle on with their below-par kit for that little bit longer. The flip side of this is reduced productivity, as more time is wasted across the organisation on waiting for slow machines to respond. It can also lead to increased security risks as older hardware is more susceptible to the latest threats. 

So you’ve got a choice: either face a big financial hit on hardware replacements or your business will suffer. But what if there’s a better way? 

We believe that to add value to their offering, IT support partners should be much more creative. This includes helping businesses spread out these costs throughout the duration of the service contract, rather than big bills for replacements every few years. 

3. Day-to-day support needs to be always on

The standard 9-to-5 pattern of working has been becoming gradually less common. The pandemic has almost certainly hastened its demise. People want to dip in and out of work at the hours that suit them, and so long as the work actually gets done, businesses are more than happy to accommodate this.

But let’s say your finance officer is working flexi-time. At 6pm, she logs onto the system only to find that there’s an issue with the cloud server. The natural next step would be to submit a support request. Trouble is, the support team has already logged off, and won’t be back until the morning. 

Flexible working demands flexible IT support. In practice, this means continual monitoring - all-day, every-day. If this isn’t on the menu, then it’s almost certainly time to look elsewhere! 

4. Better budgeting demands transparent billing 

What exactly are we paying for here? When you decided to go with your current support provider, you wanted to keep everything simple. That’s why you went for the ‘gold’ package, which you were emphatically informed would cover all your needs. 

Since then, you’ve been diligently paying the monthly contract fee. But that’s not all you’ve been paying for. 

Much to your surprise, there’s also been a steady stream of licence renewals, install bills, along with other vaguely defined extras. Turns out that the comprehensive package you went for is a lot less ‘all inclusive’ than you thought! 

Sadly, this experience is all too familiar. And with tech budgets under pressure, it’s something that has to change. You need certainty and transparency, without any of the ‘little extras’ on top.

After talking to business owners, it became clear that these types of problems were all too common. They wanted a simpler, fairer approach that matched new ways of working. That’s why we set out designing a solution that fixed everything that was wrong with traditional IT support. We’ve called it Storm-in-a-Box, and you can explore it for yourself right here. 

#businessgrowth #itsupport #cybersecurity #remoteworking #storminabox #stormit