Whilst there's no doubt that any savvy business owner understands the importance of Information Technology such as email, intranets, file servers and the like to the efficiency and profitability of their organisation, they also understand that these are not the core competency of their business.

Irrespective of the level of IT sophistication of the business, the core focus of that business is the products and services they provide, not the implementation and support of their Information Technology infrastructure.

A smart business is one that concentrates on the things that make it profitable and foster growth, and leaves the rest to people who are best placed to stay abreast of new technologies, advise on the most effective and efficient use and implementation of new systems, and employ the expertise to do so.

To that end, here are a few reasons your business should consider outsourcing IT Support.

1. IT Infrastructure support is not your core competency. Managing your IT infrastructure, planning and implementing new networks, providing help-desk support and disaster recovery planning are not activities which add to your bottom line.
2. It provides quantifiable cost savings. Are you correctly accounting for all of the costs associated with employing your IT support staff? All the tools of trade that they require, ongoing external training and certification? The costs of training new staff if one of your IT support staff leaves your organisation? What about the costs of contracting outside suppliers for specific projects which fall outside of the competencies of your internal IT staff?
3. You know what you're paying for. Quality outsourced IT support companies will provide you with tools so that you can monitor the work that they are doing.
4. You can integrate outsourced IT support with internal staff to improve the efficiency and performance of your Information Technology assets. By splitting IT support between internal and external staff, you broaden the knowlege base and your internal staff can concentrate on business specific IT Issues while the outsourced staff can concentrate on bigger picture issues.
5. As your business grows, outsourced IT grows with it. If your internal staff are having trouble keeping up with new technologies or increased internal support demands, outsourced IT upport providers will always be on top of the latest technologies. They will be able to guide you through this growth with appropriate suggestions for new technologies or upgrades of existing software and hardware solutions.
6. If your business has the neeed to call in specialist IT support assistance on a regular basis to supplement your internal IT staff, you may be better off contracting outsourced support on a fixed fee basis to avoid unexpected increases in IT costs due to the need to purchase more hours of support when a particular issue arises, or you are upgrading or installing new hardware or software.
7. If your systems aren't working as well as you'd like, or you're experiencing excessive downtime, outsourced IT support can provide proactive network monitoring so that they are able to warn you of impending problems, such as failed backups, or near full drives.
8. External IT support serices can advise you of ways that your systems can become more efficient, from an outsiders perspective. With a view that is not cluttered by knowlege of the way that the business operates, or internal politics, outsourced IT providers can take a "birds eye" view of your systems and procedures, and suggest ways to make your business more efficient, and therefore more profitable
9. External IT providers are accountable. It can be difficult sometimes to make internal staff accountable for network uptime, rapid deployment of new software systems, or internal systems support. External suppliers are held much more accountable, due to the fact that their performance can be measured against the cost of contracting them.

As you can see, there are many reasons why your business should consider outsourcing your Information Technology support. Outsourced IT support allows your business to concentrate on the things that make it grow, and be profitable and stable into the future, whilst somebody else is accountable for keeping your systems up and running, and suggesting future improvements.