If you are a small business owner, you have a whole lot to think about on a daily basis. From the start of your independent career, you have to come up with innovative product concepts that will entice the consumer market to spend money with you as opposed to your competitors and other products out there. You then have to oversee the product’s design process, as well as getting in touch with manufacturers who can bring the product to life. You will have to conduct market research to work out how you should package and market your products. You will then have to carry marketing and advertising out. It’s not all too surprising that IT might not be at the forefront of your mind.
However, IT is central to your business and its operation, especially in the modern age. Malfunctioning IT can bring your entire company and its work grinding to a halt. Think about it. In order to sell products to a mass audience, you need to keep your website up and running and regularly updated. You need to maintain a constant social media presence. You need to access emails to maintain correspondence. You need to respond to consumer queries over instant messaging systems. You also need to run specialist software, especially if you have staff who have a host of tasks to carry out. You do need to maintain your IT to keep the wheels of your company turning! When it comes to doing this, you have to choose one of two options. The first is to outsource your IT work. The second is to take care of it in-house. Let’s take a look at the merits of each!
Outsourcing
The most popular option of the two, amongst small business owners at least, is outsourcing with a reliable company like www.ribbitbusiness.com. This tends to be preferred, as it reduces your responsibility in various ways. First of all, you don’t take on the responsibility of becoming a full or part time employer. Second, it reduces the responsibility over your IT and systems, as you will have other professionals monitoring and maintaining it around the clock. Problems will be prevented and any problems that do establish themselves will be rectified in next to no time!
In-House
When your business begins to expand, and develop, you might want to start considering creating an in-house IT department. This will give you closer proximity to the individuals working on your IT. They will be able to familiarize themselves with your particular and unique systems, which will reduce the amount of time spent trying to figure problems out. You will also definitely have people there working on IT – they can be alerted of problems pretty much immediately and can get started working on issues as quickly as possible. As you can see, IT is central to your small business’ operation and success. Hopefully, the above advice will help you to determine whether outsourcing or curating an in-house team is better for your business and its needs! Image Source