How An Excellent IT Workflow Will Keep Your Business Running Steady

Setting up and maintaining IT operations can be challenging, especially when most business owners aren’t too focused on the technological side of things. Office IT can easily become a labyrinth of words in a foreign language, complex documents, and complicated systems. This is especially true in fields such as the insurance industry, or high-volume banking, which are fiercely competitive spaces of business. However, you can alleviate this problem with a dedicated IT staff and a specialized individual at the helm.

The value of an IT manager cannot be overstated. Many refer to this person as the Chief Information Officer (CIO), who will manage your technicians to ensure smooth sailing. The ideal candidate will not only be highly experienced in technology and management, but also be successful in clearly communicating operations to you in a way you’ll understand. However, this person cannot run the IT department alone, and will need a staff to help run the department.

A common mistake made in the initial stages of business IT operations is the number of technicians hired. Not enough and you’ll experience backlogged work, delays, and a clogged workflow. Too many, and you’ll be stuck with exorbitant costs for employees sitting and twiddling their thumbs all day. The IT department is not a "fire and forget" project; it requires planning and accountability. Determining how many people you need to hire is not an x = y formula; there are many variables, and you want to pay attention to them all. The CIO should be able to help solve this problem.

Outsourcing has recently become popular in the San Francisco Bay Area and aids in our continued mission of providing excellent IT services within the Bay Area itself. Outsourcing solves all of the above problems by allowing you to hire experienced leaders in the IT industry and apply only as many technicians as are needed for whatever services you require. Many systems and services that would cost a fortune to create and maintain internally, can be outsourced for much lower costs. This way you can focus on using systems instead of maintaining them. Cloud computing, e-commerce solutions, web design and hosting, social media, and anything that falls outside of your business’s current expertise are technologies that can be outsourced.

Considering everything discussed here today, your IT department is an integral part of your business. Though it does not equate to direct revenue through leads and sales, it is a vital component to success. Like all machines, your business’s most critical parts need to be in the best shape to ensure minimal problems down the line.