Understanding Your Business, Tailoring Your Support
Exploring how your unique business requirements shape the IT support you need to operate efficiently, enhance performance and scale effectively as your business grows.
What
Reactive support refers to technical support only after a problem occurs (e.g. company laptop is failing to connect, IT Service Provider investigates the problem and fixes it).
Reactive support is beneficial because its cost-efficient, and support is provided when something goes wrong. However, reactive support is poor because it has limitations like downtime. Reactive support fails to recognize an issue before it has occurred, which could potentially lead to additional disruption.
Reactive Support is an appropriate decision for small businesses because its cost-effective, and fixes issues. However, a small business must carry out thorough consideration and dive deeply into their requirements, feasibility, budgeting, and complexity to be able to achieve optimised support.
What is Proactive Support?
Proactive support refers to technical support where problems are identified before they occur meaning the managed service provider can act on this.
Proactive support is beneficial, because it reduces downtime (preventing an issue before it occurs) and it reduces security risks (fixing system inconsistencies before a malicious attack takes place).
However, Proactive support is poor because of its financial setback. It is generally more expensive to implement proactive support than it is reactive support (this is unsuitable for an SME).
Proactive support is an appropriate decision for a small business, but a larger enterprise may favour a proactive support plan to access additional features to meet requirements.
Determining a suitable support plan for your business
To effectively determine a suitable support plan for a business, it's important to consider the business context. By thoroughly analysing the current business situation, it provides a strong foundation for a business to follow and develop their support plan off.
Once the current business situation has been deeply analysed, a business should then outline their business requirements whilst considering the context (e.g. financial status or currently implemented system). Then, informed decisions can be made to invest in a support plan which is tailored to the requirements and current business situation.
For example, a smaller enterprise may favour a reactive support plan because its cost efficient, covers the essential business requirements, and it's flexibility. However, a larger enterprise may favour a proactive support plan as it identifies, manages, and documents issues.
Once the current business situation has been deeply analysed, a business should then outline their business requirements whilst considering the context (e.g. financial status or currently implemented system). Then, informed decisions can be made to invest in a support plan which is tailored to the requirements and current business situation.
For example, a smaller enterprise may favour a reactive support plan because its cost efficient, covers the essential business requirements, and it's flexibility. However, a larger enterprise may favour a proactive support plan as it identifies, manages, and documents issues.
WHAT OUR CLIENTS SAY
IT Made Simple has provided exactly what I needed for many years. When I need them, they're there - including working evenings and weekends to resolve issues. But most of the time, I never have to think about them - because everything they've set up runs smoothly, and they're checking and managing in the background. I highly recommend Chris and the team for a personal service and right-sized support for small businesses.
Anna Gunning
I'm incredibly grateful to Chris for giving me the opportunity to complete my work placement at IT Made Simple. It's been a brilliant opportunity to develop both personally and professionally, and I'm looking forward to everything still to come. I'd highly recommend connecting with Chris if you're looking for someone who is genuinely passionate about sharing knowledge, supporting others and creating opportunities.
Finlay Nock
