By The search for a solid IT infrastructure in your business comes with lots of challenges. And unless you’re strategic when choosing your IT support provider — be it OEM or a third party maintenance vendor —.the challenges can have negative impacts on your business.
For the most part, IT maintenance issues in most organizations arise from choosing the wrong partner for IT support. Meaning you need a reliable and trusted IT management provider, like the ones at www.centricsit.com. Working with a reliable IT partner, they’ll help eliminate maintenance challenges and streamline the IT architecture in your business. So, what are some of the challenges businesses face in IT systems? Let’s find out.
Hardware maintenance needs From Multiple Vendors
Most businesses operate in a mixed IT environment such that they own different IT hardware from various vendors. For instance, some of your network equipment may come from Cisco and Juniper, while others from Alcatel-Lucent. Using equipment from multiple manufacturers may mean that you’ll depend on IT support from multiple vendors, which results in complexity when managing service contracts from all those manufacturers. This is hectic and overwhelming to many business owners. But, you can simplify this process by employing one reliable third-party maintenance provider who will handle all your IT needs.
High IT Maintenance Costs
Oftentimes business owners invest a lot in IT but only end up getting little to no results in terms of business productivity and growth. While the problem may be manifold, it is also possible you’ve partnered with an expensive provider who increases service costs on each contract renewal (most OEM maintenance providers are guilty of this). To avoid such instances, you can easily partner with a third-party provider for less without sacrificing service quality. Another cause of poor productivity may be your machines are old, thus you experience frequent system breakdowns and abnormal energy consumption in your business. As a result, you end up spending more on maintenance and energy bills. To address this, consider getting new machines with energy-saving technology and are efficient in your business.
Long Response Time from OEM
The most frustrating situation is when you’ve experienced a breakdown or need a key part replaced on your machines, but your OEM is taking longer than expected to fix the issue. This can result in great losses if the downtime extends longer than you had planned. Partnering with a third-party maintenance provider can be a better option. That’s because they act as a stand-alone business (not a department inside an organization). Plus, most third-party providers deliver 24/7 or Next Business Day services for faster IT resolution and support in your organization.
Inflexible Support Terms
Does your IT maintenance provider allow you to customize the agreement between you and them to terms that work perfectly for your business? If not, you’re probably stuck in a long contract even if what you need is short-term coverage. And this leads to — paying for premium level support for all your machines or hardware. To ensure that you are getting the best support and services, you should partner with a provider that allows for customization of the services you need to suit your business needs.
IT maintenance comes with some challenges. But if you make smart decisions when hiring a maintenance provider, you’ll enjoy benefits like improved business productivity and growth.
