4 Ways Small Businesses Benefit From Proactive IT Maintenance
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Technology is vital in modern businesses. It helps in streamlining daily processes and allowing businesses to remain competitive.
However, technology has its fair share of challenges. But most of these problems stem from the fact that most business owners view information technology (IT) as a “set-and-forget” asset.
If you’re like most businesses, you probably don’t give a second thought about your IT infrastructure, unless something isn’t right and it starts to disrupt workflow. However, giving your IT infrastructure a little attention even if they are working just fine can go a long way.
If your current capabilities are limited, then you can always leverage the expertise of reputable managed IT service providers like what this site offers. They can help you in reaping the rewards of taking a proactive approach to IT maintenance.
With that said, what are the benefits you can get from taking a proactive approach in your IT maintenance?
- Enhanced Security
Cybercrime has increased by 600% since the COVID-19 pandemic. Experts estimate that cybercrime incidents can cost businesses about $2.9 million every minute. With new vulnerabilities occurring, making sure that your cybersecurity is up to date can mean the difference between a growing business and bankruptcy.
Most businesses already have common safeguards against viruses, phishing, hackers, trojans, and other intrusions. However, one of the mistakes that most business owners make is that basic security measures are enough.
Being reactive to threats means that you’re still vulnerable to the mercy of attackers who can spot vulnerabilities in your infrastructure and use it to their advantage before you even know it.
With proactive IT maintenance, tech experts will regularly check and install security patches and keep your antivirus software up to date. A proactive approach also allows you to maintain a list of updated servers, devices, and workstations so you can stay on top of firmware patches.
This allows you to detect issues and flaws early and keep your systems safe from threats, both old and new.
- Minimizing Downtime And Allowing Faster Recovery
In the tech world, downtime usually refers to the unplanned period of time during which a part of your whole IT infrastructure is unavailable to use.
All IT systems have to undergo a certain degree of downtime. Whether it’s for performing preventive maintenance or updating infrastructure, your IT systems will have to go offline at some point.
Planned downtime allows you to inform your team and customers in advance, so you can work around the schedule to minimize impact.
However, unplanned downtime is different. When your systems suddenly go offline, it can cost you a lot of money. For every minute that business operations stop, you lose out on potential sales. In fact, a survey revealed that roughly USD $26.5 billion in revenue is lost every year from IT downtime.
You might experience downtime because of various issues such as data loss, power failures, software or hardware issues, and poor maintenance.
Proactive IT monitoring and maintenance can help in reducing incidents of unexpected downtime. Your proactive IT provider can identify and resolve small issues before developing into wide-scale system failures.
In addition, a proactive strategy can also prepare you for unavoidable catastrophes by setting up systems like a backup and disaster recovery server. This allows your system to recover faster in case of system failures.
- Improved Performance
Without upgrades to your IT infrastructure, work performance will become noticeably slower. However, it’s tough to assess the performance of your tools and technologies without consistent monitoring.
Proactive IT maintenance can help in identifying and eliminating issues that may be slowing down your systems. For instance, a proactive IT provider can implement regular disk cleanups to remove the unnecessary files and programs that may be slowing down your computer.
With an effective proactive maintenance strategy, you can streamline performance issues while increasing the reliability of your IT infrastructure. With faster and more efficient technology, you can also boost your team’s productivity, allowing you to scale projects over time.
- Saving Costs
Businesses often call a technician only if a computer breaks down which can be costly. Hiring a traditional IT technician may charge on an hourly basis, and you might have to spend on repair parts or even replacing the whole system. There’s also the wasted time and productivity.
Proactive maintenance can help in cutting costs with regular monitoring of your systems which allows you to catch and resolve issues before they become serious. Also, constant caring for your hardware and software can extend its lifespan. This means that you don’t have to reinvest in new products because of old ones that keep breaking down.
Conclusion
As you can see, taking a proactive stance on your IT maintenance offers you numerous benefits. With regular IT maintenance, you can prevent tech problems before they happen. This helps save you from expensive costs, delays and improves your business’s overall performance.
