7 Mistakes You’re Making Without IT Support

Successfully executing your business model and growing your customer base are the primary goals for any business. IT support is no longer a luxury but a necessity for businesses of all sizes. Yet, many organizations, particularly small ones, need to pay more attention to the value of professional IT services. They often learn hard, and skimping on IT support can lead to costly, time-consuming mistakes. 

Modern businesses need IT support to be robust, secure, and safe from digital mishaps. With IT support, businesses are protected from data loss, hacker and malware attacks, operational efficiency problems, and falling behind the competitive digital curve.

Businesses can resolve these potential risks by hiring a Managed Service Provider (MSP). MSPs can provide businesses with the IT support they need to be secure and successful. In this blog post, we'll discuss seven common pitfalls companies fall into when they try to manage their IT needs in-house without the help of an IT support company. With this knowledge, you can avoid these mistakes and ensure your business runs efficiently and securely.

Mistake #1: Neglecting Data Backup and Recovery 

Data loss can be devastating for any business. Without a robust backup strategy, you risk losing critical information in case of hardware failures, data breaches, or disasters. You may lose days, months, or years of important business data and the trust of your clients and customers. Some companies can be completely wiped out if their servers are wiped without backups.

That's why it's important to have a reliable data backup and recovery plan in place.

IT support, however, always includes a comprehensive backup and recovery plan. This includes comprehensive system backups, archival backups, and daily logged backups so that no matter what happens to your physical or virtual data storage – you can always quickly ‘reload from save’ with minimal time lost. IT teams also test backups to ensure every recovery process succeeds.

Mistake #2: Using Outdated Technology 

Businesses can set up their operational structures these days, but updating is far more complicated. Outdated technology occurs when the shiny, new programs you started with begin to age. You may notice that your website doesn’t offer the same features or performance as your competitors or that your operational software lacks APIs to interface with the systems used by your vendors and clients.

Outdated software impacts productivity by neglecting the latest workflow solutions and interconnectivity. It impacts competitiveness by causing your company to fall behind the curve and even fail to connect with clients using newer tech.

IT support teams are responsible for keeping your business technology up-to-date with the latest software trends and operational technology. This includes implementing managed software updates to the latest version, modernizing old systems, researching the best tech for your business needs, handling data migrations, and implementing new systems to keep your business technology in line with industry standards and trends.

By keeping your technology up-to-date, IT support teams can help your business be more secure, efficient, and competitive.

Mistake #3: Ignoring Cybersecurity Threats 

Cybersecurity threats have increased in frequency and sophistication over the last two decades. With two generations of digital natives, we also have two generations in which bad seeds can become part of the darknet. Ranging from mischievous teens to career cyber-criminals, hackers enact wave after wave of scams, malware attacks, and targeted data heists in which no business – no matter the sector or size – is immune.

It is no longer reasonable to say “We’re too small’ or “We’re too obscure” to be attacked. A malware attack can reach an employee’s email randomly at any time. If you handle data involving names, payment information, or just a stack of passwords, your data might be targeted for theft.

Security breaches can also be catastrophic, depending on the type of attack. Lost data can lose the trust of your clients. Corrupted or damaged systems can damage your business – sometimes in unforeseen ways. A breach can also lead to regulation compliance consequences ranging from thousands to hundreds of thousands of dollars in fines.

This is why an IT support team’s job includes regular penetration testing, vulnerability testing, and building robust cybersecurity defenses. Custom-configured firewalls and network protocols create the first layer, defended by regular virus scanning patrols, security patch upgrades, and sometimes even writing unique security APIs to cover the gaps between third-party software partners.

Mistake #4: Lack of IT Strategy and Planning 

IT strategy is preparing your data and software structures to align with your business goals. Anyone can spin up a WordPress site and use a generic ERP, but is your business running at its optimum efficiency or presenting the best possible public face using generic solutions? Usually not. Proactive IT strategy and planning seek the best software and configurations to empower your business toward specific performance goals.

For example, your IT support team might choose an ERP designed to fit your manufacturing workflow, with unique features and data handling that work better than a generic retail-default software stack. Depending on how information is handled in your normal workflow, they might optimize your server resources for more powerful computing or faster read-write in a shared database. 

IT support can also collaborate with businesses to develop tailored IT strategies that work best with unique business models and mesh well with the software management systems of your networked vendors and clients.

Mistake #5: Inefficient IT Management and Maintenance

There’s a big difference between setting up a business tech infrastructure and properly maintaining it. Most business owners today can sign up for an enterprise account or spin up an AWS/Azure server but may not know how to optimize performance or safely upgrade the software. Most businesses worry about making any changes or updates, fearing it will upset the stack and cause problems they don’t know how to fix.

This can quickly lead to problems that build up without maintenance, inefficient processes, and outdated software. Having someone on the team who knows how to maintain and manage your tech stack is essential to avoiding problems, ensuring good performance, and advancing with updates and upgrades. Even when major overhauls are necessary, a skilled IT support team knows how to plan a staged process with minimal downtime and backups.

Mistake #6: Overlooking Employee IT Training 

Modern business is a synergy between employees and the technologies they use. This means that employee IT training is essential for both efficiency and cybersecurity. A well-trained workforce fully understands its tools and can utilize the company’s technology to get ahead. A poorly trained workforce does only a few operations they were trained to do, which can lead to inefficient processes and frequent mistakes.

IT support is often in charge of arranging training courses appropriate for each team in the company. Marketing will be trained with creation and distribution software, finance will be trained with their financial management software, engineers will fully understand their design software, and everyone will be able to navigate the shared company systems aptly. It’s quite common for a company’s IT support team to design and run workshops to keep employees up-to-date on their tools.

Mistake #7: Failing to Stay Updated with Industry Trends 

Business technology is a fast-paced landscape of constant advancements. Web tech, logistics, finance, customer support, and enterprise management -just to name a few – are constantly improving as updates to popular software and new innovative solutions are released. Companies are migrating to the cloud and competing to offer clients cutting-edge services, like omnichannel support and AI-backed personalized service.

Businesses that stay ahead of the curve are more competitive, wowing customers before trends become commonplace and gaining productivity advantages from the latest back-end technology. Of course, this kind of advancement is only possible with a capable IT support team in the works. IT support keeps businesses informed, updated, and optimized with the latest technology trends.

Boosting Your Business By Avoiding These Mistakes

If you don't have IT support, you may make some of the common mistakes listed above. The backbone supports your operations, secures your data, and drives growth. That's why you need to partner with a reliable IT support company like On Time Tech. Our team of experienced professionals can provide you with top-notch IT services tailored to your business needs. 

Contact us today to learn more about our services and how we can help you avoid these common pitfalls! If your business is suffering from one or more of these seven mistakes of running without IT support, now is the time to upgrade your operations.