Where did the summer go?! It seemed just yesterday your IT team settled into a slower pace – fewer employees online and in the office, Helpdesk tickets easily resolved, and desktop software updated. Now summer’s nearly over, and it’s ‘back to business.’ But if you streamlined your IT needs, could you enjoy improved productivity and efficiency in addition to an easier pace?
A managed IT services group can help you identify repetitive steps in your IT processes, particularly in your Helpdesk management, and show you how to eliminate the repetition. The licensed professionals at a Chicago managed IT service can also recommend software tools designed to automate mundane, repetitive tasks. And, engaging a Chicago managed service provider to monitor your network performance can handle issues before they become costly problems.
Helpdesk Assistance
Do your IT technicians complain about answering the same questions repeatedly and solving the same problems over and over? Here are three ways a Chicago managed IT service can help you streamline your Helpdesk responses.
- Education: A lack of proper employee training can result in your IT staff addressing an issue repeatedly. How well have you educated your current employees as well as your new hires on the use of your software tools? A managed IT service professional can identify the employee training needed to help your team help themselves.
- Mitigation: Perhaps a few fixes to your system or applying the latest patches to your software would avoid repeatedly sending out workaround instructions, but your internal IT team does not have the time to address the problems. A managed IT services technician can apply the updates that eliminate the annoying bugs and those repeated ticket items.
- Automation: Have you considered automating your Helpdesk ticketing process? AI-enabled Helpdesk software can handle the tickets and lift much of this burden from your IT staff. A licensed professional at a Chicago managed IT service can find the application that best meets your needs, install it, and educate your team on its use.
Software Tools
Your business has grown, and you’ve added software tools to manage projects, allow employees to collaborate, track their personal tasks, and, most recently, enable video conferencing. If you are a manufacturing company, you’re also using accounting, production management, and order entry systems. But the number of individual software tools has become unwieldly, and it’s difficult to train new hires to use them effectively. A managed services provider stays current on software applications and can direct you to packages that combine many of these helpful tools into one application. The managed services consultant can install the state-of-the-art application and educate your team on it, too.
Monitoring Services
Streamlining your IT also demands proactive monitoring of your network devices. It requires actively watching for cyber threats and constantly updating your cybersecurity software to handle them. By being proactive (monitoring system performance, replacing aging hardware, applying patches to security applications, and maintaining an effective system of data backups), a managed IT service can help you avoid loss of critical data or periods of extended downtime.
A consultant at the IT service can also streamline your operations by working closely with your software and hardware vendors. This professional can find the economic solutions when you need to replace hardware or add new software and ensure software patches from the provider are applied in an accurate and timely manner.
Vacation’s over; school’s in session, and it’s time for Chicago businesses to get back to business. A managed service provider in the Chicago area can lift some or all of your IT team’s burden and offer expertise to make your IT processes more efficient and effective. Whether you contract with a Chicago managed service provider for all your IT management needs or simply augment your own team with their services, the professionals at JMA can streamline your IT needs.