IT support comes in many forms, and it is always essential to ensure that your IT support matches your company's needs. However, it is easy to get stuck between reactive and proactive IT when sourcing the best IT support service.
A McAfee report found that the average organization has 14 network device misconfigurations, contributing to 2,269 cyber incidents per month.
The result is security vulnerabilities that leave over a billion data records exposed. Cybersecurity threats are mediated by using a proactive IT approach. But is your organization prepared for a cybersecurity attack? If not, the chances are high that your IT team is employing a reactive IT support model. With reactive IT, you should be ready for regular downtime and, at times, a total standstill in your business. And that is why you should adopt proactive IT in your organization.
So, how can proactive IT help you achieve your business goals? Read on to find out!
What Is the Difference between Proactive IT and Reactive IT?
What Is Proactive IT?
Proactive IT is the type of support to your infrastructure that ensures continuity and consistency in your business operations. This support approach focuses on monitoring and prevention more than repair. With this model, your IT team aims to prevent problems altogether or fix problems when they are small before an incident happens. Proactive security measures aim to protect data and detect intrusion early. The reason why this approach works is that someone is monitoring and acting to protect your network infrastructure.
What Is Reactive IT?
The reactive IT support model deals with an event after it has occurred. With reactive, your IT team does nothing on your system until they are needed. The implication is that support is available whenever a problem occurs. The problem with this model is that the cleanup can be very lengthy and costly once a cyberattack happens. This model can seem cheaper but does nothing for problem prevention and is often associated with network downtime.
Benefits of Working with a Proactive IT Provider
Reduced Cybercrime
Cybercrime is on the increase. As more businesses become vulnerable to attacks, making sure that your IT infrastructure is robust is critical. Proactive IT support focuses on prevention rather than detection and response by providing for the safety of your valuable data and the company's reputation. Proactive support enhances your IT security through anti-virus and proactive threat protection, advanced detection, and response with a 24x7 security operations center, and security event and incident management. Additionally, a proactive IT support provider will take care of your cloud and mobile security, carry out patch deployment, firewall management, and remote backups to keep your business protected and secure.
Profit Margin
Every business looks forward to having substantial profit margins. However, your profit margin is likely to be low when you have instances of downtime, business production stops, and significant expenses associated with IT issues become your reality.
Often, the cost of repairing your IT system following a security incident or equipment failure is high. Similarly, you are likely to incur high costs when an employee must stop doing their job to diagnose and fix IT issues. With a proactive IT service provider, you have a guarantee of long-term cost-effectiveness. Whereas the system maintenance and monitoring involve some costs, they are insignificant compared to how much it will cost you if your entire infrastructure shuts down.
Efficiency
Proactive IT, as highlighted, decreases unexpected downtime in your business. However, a proactive IT provider does not work only on reducing the reactive noise but also on addressing any issues that may hinder the efficiency of your business.
Typically, the provider facilitates proactive IT in the background, ensuring that nothing affects the network and consumes the user's time. By preventing downtimes, a proactive IT provider keeps your business running effectively!
High Customer Satisfaction
Disruptions in business operations have a significant impact on the level of customer satisfaction. As noted earlier, the proactive IT support model focuses on preventing issues, thus guaranteeing business continuity.
When you bring a proactive IT support provider onboard, your customers get more stable and reliable services from your organization, which is a great way to keep them happy.
Outsource Your IT Today!
The efficiency of your IT support impacts diverse aspects of your business – from cyber threat protection, data safety, profit margin, business scalability, and continuity. With outsourced IT, you enjoy a high level of cost-effectiveness, business continuity, and scalability.
Get in touch with Total Computer Solutions today for more information on how managed IT services can solve your ongoing IT problems and save you money.