5 Things Your IT Department Should Offer

Does Your IT Department Provide These 5 Things?

How do you know if your IT support department is up-to-scratch? If all the technicalities and jargon often go over your head, you probably want to hand over all IT-related issues to someone else and run the other way. Before you do, it’s important to make sure your IT department offers at least the 5 things covered here.

Because when they do, that means your business’ IT systems can run seamlessly and reliably in the background, so you don’t have to give them a second thought.

Proactive security

Many businesses don’t think about IT security until they have to. By then, you could be facing data breaches or malware that’s seeped its way into your system. Save yourself the panic by partnering with an IT service provider that takes a proactive, not a reactive approach to security.

In a landscape that’s always changing, you need a team on your side that keeps a constant eye on things.

In order to keep your critical data secure at all times, your IT department should be taking care of:

• Software updates - keeping software updated patches over any vulnerabilities that hackers love, protecting the data that’s most valuable to cybercriminals.
• Staff training - how security aware is your team? Most breaches make their way into businesses because a dodgy attachment was downloaded. Regular training ensures staff know what to look out for, for a strong layer of defence against attacks.
• MFA (multi-factor authentication) - MFA is a layered type of protection that businesses today shouldn’t ignore. If your IT department is working with passwords alone, it’s time to have a re-think.
  

Simplified & documented network

Building in redundancy to your network means having the right back-up in case of failure. With network stability taken care of, businesses don’t need to worry about downtime due to any single point of failure.

Your IT support department should make IT documentation a priority. This encompasses maintaining records about your network and any linked devices, which provides crucial insights should anything go wrong and you need to get back up and running quickly.

Disaster recovery plan

Do you have a plan in place in case of a breach, hardware failure or outage? Your business can’t afford to sit around twiddling its thumbs; your dedicated IT support services need to step up to make sure everything keeps ticking along in case a disaster does strike.

A disaster recovery plan is a formal document covering strategies that will help your business to recover from a disaster, so that revenue, reputation and customer satisfaction don’t take a hit.

24/7 IT support services

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When your in-house team takes some time off, you need to know you have the IT support services to keep systems working 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 365 days a year.

It’s essential that your IT department provides year-round coverage at any time of the day. Downtime gets expensive, and no one wants to stare at a blank screen at 8PM or on Sunday afternoon when they need to get something done and their tech specialist is off with the flu.

Value for money

Outsourcing IT services should save businesses money while increasing efficiency. Your business should be able to access a broader range of skills without the overheads associated with hiring in-house staff.

Make sure any outsourced IT services are good value for money. The cheapest isn’t always the best option, but do shop around to uncover which services are the best fit for your business, for streamlined IT that is worth every dollar.

Talk to The IT Department in Melbourne

The IT Department has been providing IT support services to businesses across Australia for over two decades. We know what’s important and we offer flexibility to mould around each business we work with.

To find out more about what we could do for your business, call us on 1300 10 10 40.