Benefits of Business IT Consulting That You Just Cannot Ignore

IT systems have become the need of the hour to ensure consistent growth and success for businesses.

To maintain an in-house IT team is not such a sound investment anymore. In today’s economic crisis it makes more sense to outsource the IT requirements of a business. A professional IT services company has more experience, expertise and resources to solve problems and maintain systems.

Lets us read more about the benefits of hiring business it consulting company for your business -

1. Complete Focus On The Core Business

When the network IT support is outsourced, it allows the management to focus on the growth and profit targets of the company. They are not distracted by the IT issues and can concentrate on their core competencies. The time that is spent on fixing IT related problems can be spent elsewhere.

2. Increase the Scale of Economies and The Purchasing Power Of The Company

IT companies offering business IT consulting services have a broader knowledge base and access to a vast number of information resources. They are able to deliver better, updated and cost effective solutions to IT problems. That in turn increases the efficiency of a company and saves time and money.

3. The Operations Costs Is Reduced

The cost of outsourcing IT always proves to be lower than maintaining a separate department in the company. Additionally issues like training, recruiting of IT employees, and all other management related issues are handled by the IT Company themselves. An IT company will get into a fixed contract with the business.

4. Access to the Most Professional Experts

When a company has an in-house IT department their resources for solving a problem are limited to the in-house team.  When the IT services are outsourced, companies can demand the services of an expert in order to solve a problem effectively.

5 Questions for Selecting an It Service Provider

Selection of the right MSP will ensure a smooth and fruitful association with the provider for many years.

Most companies today are of the opinion that outsourcing IT is a better option than keeping it in house. Choosing the right MSP or Managed Services Provider is most critical in order to take advantage of all its benefits.  Ask your MSP the following five questions –

1. What are the Core Competencies of the MSP?

An MSP that deals primarily in IT support services will be a better choice than one that treats IT services as a secondary role. Take references of current clients and get an overview of the services.

2. Is The MSP Technologically Sound?

IT services are evolving all the time; a good MSP will keep itself updated about the latest developments in technology and information. While selecting an MSP ensure that they will be able to implement the technology specific to your company. A reputed MSP will always keep its team and technologies updated in order to provide the best services to its clients.

3. Will The MSP Be Able To Offer Process Specific Support?

A good MSP should be able to support a company at various levels, namely processes, procedure, tasks and people too. At all times they should have KPI availability for the client. The MSP should ideally be able to support the client 24/7 and have a dedicated team in place.

4. Does The MSP Fit With The Culture Of Your Company?

This may not seem important at the first glance, but it is essential that the MSP becomes an integral part of all your processes. If the work culture of the MSP and the client is similar, it will lead to mutual benefits to both parties. A common understanding between people on both the ends is a must.

5. Will The MSP Be Able To Understand The Growth Objective Of The Client?

The success of any company depends largely on its IT services in today’s date. The growth targets and goals of the company should be shared with the MSP. They should have a clear idea of where the company is headed and their role in that success graph. Always select an MSP that has compete clarity on their role and the IT needs of the company.

A Practical Guide to Cloud Computing Services

Cloud computing comes with its advantages and risks. Companies are strongly advised to study both before taking the plunge.

Cloud computing has made investments in data centers, and other hardware a thing of the past. Cloud computing can be broadly classified into two categories, a public cloud or a private cloud. The former is one that has no restrictions of demographics and limitation of storage space. A private cloud has demographic restrictions, but is much more reliable and secure.

Have at look at Cloud Computing services in detail –

1. The user must read the terms and conditions carefully before signing the Service agreement form the IT support company.

2. The CCS provider is liable to perform all the diligence and provide the best network it support, especially if it is in alliances with third parties.

3. In order for the cloud computing services to work smoothly, the company or user must get into an agreement for the Data Processor.

4. Have some knowledge of the data protection obligations in order to get a commitment from a business IT supports company.

5. Insist on keeping your data segregated form data of other companies. Ensure that there are terms and conditions governing this condition in the agreement.

6. Please have clarity on whether the data will be stored indefinitely or completely eradicated once the term of service ends.

7. Choose a CCS provider that has a system in place for regular screening for security and best practices.

8. A CCS provider will offer each client a vulnerability test or scan to prove their credibility.

Is the Future for Businesses in Hybrid Cloud?

The cloud is today an integral part of virtually every enterprise, small or big. Moving forward, since business requirements of organizations will evolve to the next level, it is but natural to ponder on the shape that the future cloud will acquire.

Most probably, it will take a hybrid form to efficiently meet ever-increasing requirements of different industries. Hybrid model, after all, has the best of both worlds!

Why the Hybrid Cloud Model?

One of the biggest problems with the current cloud model in use is insecurity; not all businesses can rely on public clouds for safety reasons and most companies can’t afford completely private storage solutions!

Practically, the only solution to this dilemma can be a hybrid cloud model. It can protect company networks and also reduce workload. Should anything go wrong with one part of the network, a hybrid cloud can still continue to deliver.

Here is what we can expect the future hybrid cloud model to have in store in terms of advantages:

More Flexibility & Performance: 

Today, while everyone wants to deploy economical cloud solutions, most industries have to employ expensive private cloud providers in order to abide by government
regulations. The financial sector is the best example. The worse, they can’t be sure of complete customer safety even after spending too much on professional cloud storage services.

When working together, private and public clouds involve either high deployment costs or safety risks; combining them solves both of the problems. Here, we need to engage with expert cloud providers who can build a flawless hybrid cloud model.

An Eco-Friendly Approach:

Given the high level of competition in the cloud market, cloud companies will need to market themselves as ‘green’ or ‘eco-friendly’ to get a competitive edge over other providers in future. And none other than a hybrid cloud model can help a professional cloud company to establish its commitment to the ongoing green revolution. A hybrid cloud model uses lesser resources compared to the traditional ones.

Author Bio: 
A Singapore based IT consultant company APIXEL IT Services, has been operational for over 8 years from now. Apixel provides fixed price IT support services with unlimited packages that includes small business server setup, cloud solution configuration, network management and data security & theft prevention. The company also provides expert IT consultancy to SMEs in Singapore.

Increase in Cloud Service Usage Results

What You Should know about E-Signature Security in the Cloud

Compared to the Internet and other such technologies, cloud computing is yet to acquire a fully mature form but yes, it has indeed got some stringent data security protocols in place now. Cloud solutions are way more secure than they were until few years ago.

Find Out What Standards Are Being Followed?

E-signature security mechanism is one of the core elements of most security protocols that are enforced to keep the data (in transit as well as at rest) safe from unauthorized access or theft.

Just about any credible cloud computing company in Singapore or elsewhere will inform you that your e-signature service host must comply with the requirements of popular and established standards such as SOC2 (Service Organization Controls).

If you are choosing a cloud company that’s SOC2 compliant, you need worry a great deal about security as the company is almost certainly taking the required steps to ensure maximum data protection.  

Is the Service Provider Working With a Credible Cloud Company?

E-signature service providers either work with third party cloud companies (for IT infrastructure requirements) or have their own, in-house servers.

Small or mid sized companies that tie up with reputed companies for cloud infrastructure should be preferred over the ones relying on in-house servers.

Also, keep in mind that the e-signature service provider should have a proven mechanism in place for identification, authentication and attribution. At each and every signature location, the host should make use of digital signature technology to ensure maximum protection. Needless to mention, the host should be able to gather evidences along the entire audit trail for future reference. 

Author Bio: 
A Singapore based IT consultancy company, APIXEL IT Services, has been operational for over 8 years from now. Apixel provides fixed price IT support services with unlimited packages that includes small business server setup, cloud solution configuration, network management and data security & theft prevention. The company also provides expert IT consultancy to SMEs in Singapore.

Key Benefits of IaaS for SMBs

Since IaaS takes the entire burden of managing IT off the shoulders of SMBs, they are rapidly adapting to this technology. Read on to learn about the key benefits IaaS has for small and medium-sized businesses!

Keeping pace with industry innovations and developing an infrastructure that can respond efficiently to competitive pressures are probably the biggest challenges small and medium-sized businesses face. This is the reason many enterprises today are using managed IT support services. Professional cloud computing services and Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) are the best examples.

A unique and high-efficiency IT model, IaaS allows SMBs to outsource their IT equipment and function independently of costly in-house maintenance.

Here is why more and more SMBs are opting for IaaS.

Flexibility and Scalability

An obvious advantage of opting for the IaaS model is flexibility of operation. This flexibility allows SMBs to scale up and down faster, responding more efficiently to all the business requirements.

Today, every IaaS provider has the latest networking technologies and hi-tech servers to provide a better storage, as well as the ability to accommodate ever-changing customer requirements. This added flexibility helps businesses create, test and develop improved work environments and speed up scalability in time.

IaaS Is Relatively Cost-Effective

One of the biggest benefits of IaaS is lower infrastructure costs. Businesses taking professional cloud computing and IaaS services are no longer responsible for ensuring maximum uptime, replacing faulty/old equipment, or maintaining hardware and networking setups.

IaaS also makes organizations more competence to deal with abrupt business challenges, especially businesses with smaller IT infrastructures.

Professional Support for High Availability

Although every business understands that it is crucial to have a disaster recovery strategy in place, it is often highly expensive to employ the technology that it takes to successfully implement it. Here, enterprises operating from multiple locations face a lot of problems, for managing various aspects such as business continuity, technology and disaster recovery simultaneously isn’t some easy. 

Thankfully, IaaS helps businesses set up a foolproof and versatile disaster recuperation infrastructure and that too within the most reasonable costs. Executives can access such an infrastructure from virtually anywhere, at any point of time during crisis. 

A Quicker Time to Market

The overall business approach and efficiency of a business is testified by the availability of resources that can help improve its time to market. One of the reasons for this is the high levels of competition in the corporate sector.

With IaaS providing improved operational flexibility, all small and medium-sized businesses find it easier to reach the market more quickly. And when their products and services are making it to the market well in time, they can ensure faster business growth and more profits. 

A More Centralized Focus

When a business has to spend more time and money on setting up and maintaining IT infrastructure than growing the business, development in terms of expansion and higher revenues is almost impossible. A service-based IaaS model, on the other hand, allows businesses to concentrate on business development policies while the service provider takes care of the IT aspect.