Times have changed tremendously over the years, especially in the way people shop for their necessities. Now more than ever, customers are using smartphones and other digital channels for purchases and product comparisons.
What does that mean for your business?
The change in consumer behavior from traditional to digital allows you to further your market reach. It can help retain old customers and capture new and potential ones. In addition, it’s an opportunity to lower your operational costs because there will be less manual work.
The question is, looking at your current technology, will you be visible to customers? Can your business provide a seamless buying experience across every retail touchpoint? Or is your old IT infrastructure holding you back from achieving your business goals?
At ITS, we help hundreds of businesses leverage their technology to increase profitability. As a Managed IT Service Provider, we’ve seen how our clients, Gardner White and JARS Cannabis, scaled up their businesses with the help of the right technological solutions.
Safe to say, the right Managed IT Support plays a big role in the growth of retail businesses, or any kind of business for that matter. And so, in this article, we’ll give you five key benefits of having one, namely:
- Boosted productivity and operability
- Guaranteed network security
- Cost effectivity
- Quicker disaster recovery
- Ease of scalability
We’ll delve into each reason below.
5 Major Advantages of Having Managed IT Support for Your Business
For a business to ensure safety and longevity, it is essential that your IT is running at optimal condition 24/7. However, this might seem like a lot of work, especially if you’re still in the building stage of your business.
You will need to have a reliable IT partner.
Here are the four major advantages of having Managed IT Support for your business.
1. Boosted productivity and operability
Managed IT helps you:
- Stay current with the latest technology
Technology evolves faster than the speed of light, and it would be hard to keep up with all the changes on your own. There’s cloud migration, automation, and digital platform management. All of which are considered non-negotiables for a retail business in this era. But then, just thinking about all the IT work that needs to be done might already seem taxing.
Managed IT can help soothe your worries.
An MSP can work in the background to keep your system running smoothly without disrupting your day-to-day operations. You also don’t have to check in regularly on new technology updates and developments as they will also keep you informed and help your business transition if they see fit. - Be more productive
No, you can’t just assign anybody from your team members to manage your IT just because they are tech-savvy. Information technology is much more complicated than that. Moreover, since monitoring your network requires full attention, this task will consume all of their time–time that should’ve been spent on doing what they’re originally hired to do.
Having dependable Managed IT Support gives you the freedom and time to focus on serving your customers instead of worrying about tech problems.
- Lessen downtime
Another benefit of having an MSP is that you can easily reach out to them should there be network interruptions to go back to normal operations faster. Even more so, Managed IT can work on solutions to identify potential threats to your network and mitigate them before they cause any major crisis that could hamper your business processes.
2. Guaranteed network security and compliance
Retail is one of the most vulnerable industries when it comes to cybersecurity. Since it carries a large amount of customer data and huge revenue, it’s only expected that cyber attackers target such businesses.
That shouldn’t be a reason for you to be out of business.
Managed IT bolsters your network defenses to keep malware and other cyber threats away. They maintain and regularly update your servers and operating systems, including point of sale, software, and firmware, so there’s no opportunity for hackers to infiltrate them.
Furthermore, Managed IT can also help you comply with all laws and regulations with regard to protecting your customer’s financial data. They will have access to a range of tools that you can use in your business to keep all data safe and ensure that customers’ trust is not broken.
3. Cost effectivity
Having in-house retail IT support may be costly, especially for small businesses. There are many things you need to prepare and a lot more hours you need to spend on building one. Not to mention the risks involved with the limitation of resources necessary to create robust cybersecurity.
You need to shell out even more money on reparation and recovery when things go south.
Outsourcing a Managed IT Support may be more beneficial for you since it enables you to pay a fixed monthly cost rather than the variable costs of setting up your own. Managed IT also ensures that someone is responsible for monitoring your network round the clock so there will be a lesser chance of system malfunction.
When you leave your IT to professionals, it will also let you focus on growing your business revenue.
4. Quicker disaster recovery
Certainly, partnering with a Managed IT reduces the risks of a disaster happening to your business. However, it doesn’t totally diminish it.
No worries, though. In the event that a disaster strikes, a Managed IT service often comes with backup solutions to help you recover lost files and bounce back a lot faster than dealing with it solely.
Read Protect Your Business with a Disaster Recovery Plan.
5. Ease of scalability
When you have the newest technology implemented in your system, you are sure that your network works optimally, and you will also have the edge over your competitors.
Managed IT brings you the right technology at a faster rate. This makes your business processes more manageable and more efficient, leading to better productivity in the workplace. Accordingly, this opens up doors for scaling up.
If you’re a visual learner, maybe this video will resonate better.
Insert video: https://www.itsasap.com/blog/why-is-technology-important-to-your-business
Do you have the right Managed IT Support for your retail business?
As your retail business grows, your Managed IT Support grows with you. To sum up all the key benefits of working with one, here’s a quick recap:
- Boosted productivity and operability
- Guaranteed network security
- Cost effectivity
- Quicker disaster recovery
- Ease of scalability
Here at ITS, we help businesses thrive by managing their technology. If you’re curious about the cost of partnering with a Managed IT, you may read this post to evaluate what your next steps would be.