Does it seem like your IT staff spends all their time running around with the proverbial fire extinguisher; instead of working on strategic projects that help you gain more clients, satisfy your current clients, or cut costs.

Gartner, an industry research firm, estimates that up to 80% of IT resources are spent on maintaining your existing technology. While your competitors are driving business forward by responding to clients quicker, capturing more leads, and shortening their sales cycles, your IT staff is on the technology treadmill trying to outrun the machine.

Companies need to look at their IT staff as a strategic business group. Bring them in to your corporate planning sessions instead of running around with a box of Band-Aids. Most IT professionals want to help your business grow, and they do not enjoy the mundane day-to-day tasks required to maintain your network.

So, who is going to take care of the aforementioned tasks?

These tasks do not require an individual with knowledge of your business, nor does this need to be done by someone sitting at your office. IT staff at your office should be supporting line of business applications and helping create and implement a technology strategy that drives new business, increases revenues, and increases profits.

The mundane day-to-day tasks can be done better and less costly by a managed service provider, such as EssentiaLink. They can provide these services in a much more efficient way than you could if you tried purchasing all the different software packages required to automate these tasks. Even with all this software, you would still be paying a person to sit and watch the system to make sure it’s working. The managed service provider uses its economies of scale and specialization to make sure these tasks are completed much more thoroughly.

Unless your IT person is a robot, he or she will have to sleep, take sick days, and take vacations. With managed services, you do not have to worry about who is watching over your network when the IT staff needs to take off. Your systems are monitored and maintained 24×7x365.

With these tasked taken over by a managed service provider, your IT staff can now focus on the new customer relationship management system project, the accounting software upgrade project that will allow for faster receivables, or the document management system project to allow remote access to critical documents for your traveling staff.

Some of the services referenced above include, workstation maintenance, server maintenance and monitoring, security monitoring, hosted solutions (ex: Microsoft Exchange), and backup and disaster recovery.

At EssentiaLink, we offer these in our MaintenanceFreeIT suite of services.

We have seen companies regain the talents of their IT staff by outsourcing the mundane. They have less exposure to data loss, and their IT staff is much happier now that they are not sitting around waiting for the other shoe to drop.

In today’s economic struggles, it’s time to unleash the power of your technology. It’s time to let your IT staff help drive your business forward. It’s time cut your IT related energy costs. It’s time for The Strategic IT Department.