Scaling Up: How Managed IT Services Facilitate Growth for Small Businesses

If you’re like most small business owners, you sometimes dream of being a big business tycoon. But realistically, you’d probably be content to build up your small operation incrementally, expanding here and there, to make your company as prosperous as possible. There are many ingredients to any formula for success, and slow and steady generally wins the race. However, business growth doesn’t have to take forever. There are tools and strategies that can help you better seize opportunities for expansion, and one important tool is managed IT services.

How can managed IT services support the elements of business growth?

Let’s list a few of the most important elements for small business growth. Then let’s consider how IT supports this aspect of your business:

• Customer loyalty and acquisition — You’ve got satisfied customers and you’re getting more all the time. If this is true, you probably rely on IT for communicating with customers, running ad campaigns, processing and fulfilling orders, prospecting new clients, and supporting your sales force, to name just a few tasks.
• High worker productivity — You’ve got a skilled staff working diligently to advance the company’s mission. These workers rely on your IT network to complete tasks and management relies on the network to oversee business processes. The network collects data necessary for employees at all levels to understand what must be done next.
• Predictability — Before you expand, you have to be confident that your monthly revenue will provide the cash flow to cover additional expenses until you start to realize additional revenue. The data your network collects enables accurate accounting and projections.
• Security — Expansion means taking on additional risks, so you’ve got to feel comfortable about how you are managing your current risks. From an IT perspective, this means secure storage of data with a reliable recovery plan in case of disaster. For many businesses, this includes the ability to continue operations remotely if there’s a problem at the workplace.
• Strategy — You must have a viable plan for expansion that all your stakeholders can buy into. Your plan might unfold in stages, depending on how quickly you achieve certain metrics. IT can support your strategy by facilitating research and enabling you to analyze all pertinent data, while you plan and during each stage of implementation.

It’s apparent from this short list that a high-performing IT network is essential for business growth. So, here’s how a Manage Services Provider (MSP) ensures that your network performs at that optimal level.

• Reliability — With an MSP you get continuous monitoring of your network and support available 24/7/365. MSPs conduct regular upgrades to software and alert you when equipment needs to be replaced.
• Security — MSPs provide secure data storage and recovery plans. MSPs monitor your systems to detect vulnerabilities and threats. Software updates include network security programs, so you can stay a step ahead of emerging threats.
• Flexibility — MSPs allow you to grow without purchasing new servers and finding a place to house them. They allow you to add remote workers, so you don’t need to add office furniture or expand your footprint.
• Scalability — With an MSP, you can expand incrementally without a huge capital investment. Instead of buying a ton of equipment to get the best per unit price, you can add to your network as needed.
• Expertise — Your MSP has a broad knowledge base and keeps pace with changes in IT that can benefit your business now and in the future. The answers you need are only a phone call away.
• Cost-effectiveness — Perhaps the most important point is that you can have all these advantages at a price that fits your budget. By keeping overall network costs down, you preserve resources that can go towards your expansion plans.

Even if you are not currently planning to expand your business, contracting with a reliable MSP, like KMF Technologies, can start you on your way. By making your business more efficient and cost effective, KMF Tech can quickly get you to the point where expansion becomes viable, and your tycoon dreams are closer to reality.