8 Benefits of IT Consulting Services to Know
Today’s businesses have more intensive information technology needs than ever. Many business owners don’t have time to troubleshoot IT while performing their day-to-day tasks, nor do they have the resources to expand their IT team.
Some turn to a managed service provider to cover their IT duties. However, not all businesses need that level of hands-on help. Hiring an IT consultant gives you access to the expertise you need without giving them full control. Yet, many of the benefits of IT consulting are similar.
In this article, we’ll discuss eight benefits of hiring an IT consulting service. Within that, we’ll explain how IT consultants help your business meet your goals with their extensive knowledge and skills.
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What are the Benefits of Hiring IT Consulting Services?
Save Time and Money
According to a recent survey, 20% of respondents said they always had negative experiences with workplace technology. This was a direct result of facing an average of 18 IT frustrations during a typical week.
Furthermore, the same study revealed that these frustrations led to an average of 102 minutes in lost productivity. The good news is that IT consulting services can help you avoid these frustrations and save money in the long run.
Firstly, a consultant can supplement your internal IT team. This is especially true for specific, specialized projects. Hiring a temporary consultant is much more cost-effective than expanding your team.
Secondly, a consultant’s expertise helps prevent missed deadlines caused by technical problems. They can help you scale your infrastructure to meet project requirements at a comparatively more affordable rate.
All of this comes with the added benefit of less time spent on troubleshooting IT problems and dealing with outages and downtime.
Ensure Your Staff Remains Competitive
Unlike managed services, IT consulting firms don’t fully assume control of your IT duties. Instead, they augment your team by providing professional advice. Therefore, one of the unique benefits of IT consultants is that they increase your team’s competitiveness through coaching.
This doesn’t mean that managed service providers neglect staff training. It means that IT consulting usually focuses on helping your team perform their tasks more efficiently instead of doing the tasks themselves.
Boost Productivity
Whether through staff training or strategic advice, enhanced productivity is perhaps among the biggest benefits of IT consulting. Thanks to their innovative solutions and organization-specific strategies you can take your productivity to the next level.
Tailored IT advice will greatly reduce your downtime. Reduced downtime is excellent for employee productivity and it increases client satisfaction. In this sense, an IT consultant’s tailored solutions have better opportunity costs than a “one-size-fits-all” strategy.
Get an Outside Opinion
The bottom line is, people often get stuck in their habits after performing the same tasks for a long time. IT professionals are no different. Your internal team is good at what they do, but there are a lot of benefits of consulting in IT departments.
For one, your IT team gets the opportunity to upskill. Meanwhile, you’ll get access to a wider breadth of knowledge without the logistics of committing to another full-time employee. You may also benefit from insight into how to tailor your resources to align with your business goals.
Enhance Your Cybersecurity
Cybersecurity matters to everyone, but if you’re a small business, it’s even more crucial. In 2021, 46% of cyberattacks actively targeted smaller businesses. Hackers do this because they know that small businesses operate with fewer resources.
Expertise from an IT consulting company will help you boost your protection with the resources you have. A consultant may suggest an upgrade within your budget or give you peace of mind by showing you how you can utilize your current infrastructure to secure your network.
Optimize Your Resources
According to UK-based software lifecycle firm 1E, one-third of a company’s purchased software goes unused. This means you could do more with up to one-third of your resources.
IT consultants can offer advice on how you can effectively use all of your resources to meet your goals. As a result, you’ll waste less money on unnecessary tools.
In addition, you could streamline business operations in ways you may have been unaware of before without making any additional purchases.
Increased Focus
IT consultants are expert planners. They will help you create project roadmaps and show you what tools will help you get there. You’ll also get advice on how to increase team buy-in so everyone is enthusiastic about your project.
Altogether, this will increase everyone’s focus on your business goals. Each project works towards your overall goal and more interest in your projects leads to more interest in your ultimate objective.
Stay on Top of the Latest IT Trends
When digital transformation projects fail, it’s often because the company missed an important IT trend. One of the biggest benefits of hiring IT consultants is that part of their job is to keep their ears to the ground on current technology trends.
Advice from IT consultants will prevent project misalignment and failure while helping you stay competitive. They might also bring a highly beneficial emerging technology to your attention that will boost your overall productivity.
Interested in learning more about the benefits of IT consulting? Check out these blogs:
- Managed IT: Benefits From Outsourcing Your IT
- How to Find a Qualified Managed IT Services Provider
- How Managed IT Services are Helping Businesses Stay Competitive
Experience the Benefits of an IT Consultant With Cloud9 Solutions
Cloud9 Solutions offers quarterly on-site IT consultations for businesses of all sizes. Our services can help you stay up-to-date with the latest technology solutions and strategically plan your next project and grow your business.
Our expert IT consultants can also help you build custom technology roadmaps and aid your vendor management processes. This way, you’ll be set to effectively meet your custom IT deadlines with help from the most suitable software vendors.
Whether your infrastructure is on-premise or in the cloud, contact us today to enjoy all of the benefits of IT consulting services.