Many Orange County small businesses have neither the time nor the budget to handle their IT services in-house. For these companies, managed IT services offer a much more convenient and affordable solution by incorporating a team of third-party professionals monitoring equipment, updating software and providing 24-7 tech support. Even so, you’ll need to set up some sort of budget to ensure you’re getting the support and services you need most. Here are some tips to help you set up your IT managed services budget.
Prioritize Your Needs and Wants
Let’s face it: You might want your business to have 100 virtual phone numbers with 4K definition video chat to any country in the world—but your company might not need all that technology right now. On the other hand, every business today should have a core package of priority services like cybersecurity, data backup and maybe basic VoIP. Make a list that prioritizes the features your company can’t do without, along with a “wish list” of additional features that would be nice to have. In this way, you can tailor your budget to accommodate all the critical features and hopefully a few of the non-critical ones. As your business grows, you can add to your IT budget to include more of the extras.
Take an Inventory
How many employees do you have? How many computers? How many portable devices? How many phone lines do you need? Will you require separate software installed on all devices, or will you use cloud computing apps to create uniformity across those devices? Having this information handy will help your IT service provider give you a clearer understanding of how much to plan for in your budget.
Break It Down to Cost per User (or Device)
One of the easiest ways to develop a cohesive managed IT budget is to view it in terms of either cost per user or cost per device (or both). This type of breakdown is highly useful because it helps you determine how much you can afford in managed IT services, along with how much you’ll need to add to your IT budget each time you hire and train new staff.
Call for an Estimate
Once you have a clear understanding of your IT needs and how much you can spend, the next step is to contact us so we can evaluate your needs and give you a realistic estimate for what you should expect to spend on managed IT services. To learn more, call NetServ today at 1-877-NetServ.