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IT Consulting and Outsourcing a CIO: Understanding Your Business From Those in the Field

June 16, 2016 by eric

Your Los Angeles business is perhaps going through a major growth phase now and has to have a CIO analyze what type of technology you need to progress. As a small business, you’ve maybe never had a CIO in-house, yet likely wondered if you ever needed one. They’re essential when you need to put together an IT strategy to get ahead of your local competitors. But despite your growth now, you’re realizing hiring one is overly expensive.

At this point, you may balk on hiring a CIO out of fear the cost would outweigh the advantages in what they’d provide. This is a major dilemma, especially if you already have a CIO and have to keep one on the payroll during times when they aren’t immediately needed.

Turning to a CIO consultant is the answer for a number of vital reasons. If you’ve never used an IT consultant before, you’ll discover how affordable this option is, including having a more reliable knowledge base.

Take a look at how IT consulting with a CIO is the best investment you can make this year.

Evaluating Your Existing IT

The technology you already have needs auditing to determine whether you need to upgrade or use what you have to maintain your growth. Because this might only occur once a year, having a CIO on your payroll can become an expense that starts cutting into the gains you’re making.

Through a CIO consultant, you’ll get a technician who’s had experience in the field and knows what’s truly best for your small business. What makes consultants so great is they’ve worked for numerous companies big and small here in Los Angeles or abroad.

These consultants realize what works for other businesses like yours and can expertly audit your technology for reliable analysis. They aren’t out to sell you on the latest tech devices just because they’re popular. You’ll only get what’s necessary based on the next step: Figuring your goals.

Assessing Your Business Goals

You may have a basic idea of what your goals are for your small business, but you may not fully comprehend all the possibilities. With an expert audit from a CIO consultant, you’ll get a complete picture of what’s possible based on what you have and what you could easily acquire.

As a result, you’ll have new ideas on how to achieve specific projects or product launches. Using the right technology, it also steps up productivity so basic operations never give you risk of downtime.

Again, consultants know what works for businesses like yours, because they’ve seen it all. It’s not to say they won’t thoroughly analyze your business as a unique case.

Implementing an IT Strategy

Planning and executing your IT strategy isn’t always easy when you’re on your own. An in-house CIO won’t have the field experience to understand what technology to acquire, and may end up giving you something that doesn’t quite work.

The same goes for proper technology installation and implementation. Consultants are there to make sure new technology easily assimilates into your work culture without confusion. They do this through in-person training, though giving you infrastructure that’s instantly simple to use is always a top goal.

Using a CIO Consultant Again in the Future

After your consultant executes your IT vision, you just pay for the services they rendered. When you need them again, they’ll be there without having to pay them a monthly salary.

Here at GeekTek IT Services, we have a reliable team of CIO consultants that can help your small Los Angeles business grow to the level you’ve dreamed.

Contact us to learn about our consultancy team and the comprehensive IT services we provide to help you thrive in the L.A. marketplace.

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What Are the Key Things to Look for in a Managed Service Provider to Stay Competitive?

May 27, 2016 by eric

If you’ve just opened a business here in the Los Angeles area, you already know how competitive your specific industry is. L.A. is still one of the busiest business centers in America, and the only way to keep up with competitors is having fail-safe technology.

Hiring a managed service provider is one way to keep your technology under control, though you’re perhaps new to hiring one. It’s time to learn about what to look for in managed services, because it’s comprehensive in what they provide. Even if you’ve already hired an in-house IT team, having a managed service provider as consultants can bring extra security.

Before you hire your IT team, it’s important to vet them and find out what qualities they bring. They cover more angles than you perhaps initially estimated, and looking at their background can tell you so much.

Let’s look at what to scope out while discovering how comprehensive managed services are.

Things to Look for in a Managed Service Provider

Vetting Their Experience

Since those who manage your IT will make sure it all runs efficiently every day, you need to have a team with a proven track record. One with several years (if not decades) of experience is preferable based on how much they’ve encountered in their career. The more problems they’ve had experience solving over the years, the more they can understand what they need to do to manage your technology.

The greatest aspect of consultants is they haven’t worked with just one company for years. They go from one company to the next while gaining unique real-world experiences. A managed service team with at least 5 years of experience will understand technology evolution and see the realities of what businesses face now.

Your business may have unique tech challenges. But IT consultants know what’s best for you based on other companies they’ve worked for with similar structure.

24/7 Monitoring

Any managed service provider not providing constant monitoring on your network isn’t worth your time. In today’s IT world, anything can happen, including on weekends or holidays. Unfortunately, the worst problems can occur during off-hours when in-house technicians aren’t available.

Most managed service teams monitor your system remotely and take care of problems without even having to alert you. A problem occurring late in the evening on a Sunday can frequently get solved by the time you come to work Monday morning.

comprehensive-managed-it-services-los-angeles — Comprehensive Managed IT Services Los Angeles

Flexibility in Solving Problems

Any quality managed services team needs to provide proof of their past track record. In their record, you need to check their flexibility in being able to solve complex problems. As mentioned above, consultants have diverse experience, so any flexible qualities in being able to solve unexpected issues is essential.

Testimonials from other companies they’ve worked for can give you an idea of how they tackled various problems. You want confidence they’ll audit your company and understand your tech needs and business structure. If you’re a small to mid-sized business, this is vital since any downtime from failed IT tech could become financially devastating.

Response Time to Technical Issues

While you want thorough knowledge behind getting your tech problems solved, how fast your managed services team responds to problems needs just as much focus. Again, studying past testimonials can give you a good idea of how fast (and efficient) they solved emergency issues.

Most problems can get solved remotely, though it might require occasional in-person visitations for repair. Having someone there as quickly as possible can pare down how much downtime you’ll face. During a very critical moment (when experiencing an influx of visitors), you want complete assurance in turn-around time.

Contact us here at GeekTek IT Services to learn about our managed services. We guarantee all of the above for small and mid-sized businesses in the L.A. region.

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Managed Service Providers Saving Time and Money

May 13, 2016 by eric

The number of hardware, software and middle-ware used to manage businesses has grown exponentially in recent years. As the market grows more competitive, companies are shifting to more technology to offer the best service at the lowest price. However, the technology can easily overwhelm a small or medium-sized business. And if they are not careful, the costs can get out of hand too. For that reason, more companies are turning to managed service providers (MSP) to eliminate hassle, save time and money. These services help the business scale and get to the next level of profitability.

Managed Service Provider

A managed service provider is fundamentally an IT outsourcing company, but usually one that can interact and support you on a daily basis. The firm can provide desktop and server support, virtual CIO services and individual IT projects. Whereas an in-house IT department might take months and hundreds of thousands or millions of dollars to create, a managed service provider joins your team with the stroke of a pen.

Why to go for an Outsource Provider?

For example, the time and expense of hiring a person to run a server support system does not make sense for small and mid-sized companies. While set-up and customization take effort, the everyday monitoring and administration are not too time consuming. For that reason, it makes much more sense to use an outsource provider that can manage the server system among many other tasks that they perform.

Consider Cloud Storage & Support

Cloud storage and support is another big function of managed service providers. In recent years, cloud storage providers have offered more and more outsourced server space at lower costs. However, managing and scaling this storage is becoming unwieldy for companies. In addition, they need customization on top of the cloud storage service that is best handled by an internal or contracted IT provider. In particular, companies need to manage their security, access and permissions. They need end-to-end encryption and multi-layer password protection. Otherwise, they could become vulnerable to hackers.

You can use MSPs for short-term IT projects

managed-service-providers-los-angeles — Managed Service Providers Los Angeles

Companies also often have short-term IT projects that do not require a full-time IT department. Managed service providers are best for this task. For example, a company may want to set-up an advanced customer relationship management (CRM) system for its sales team. The company can buy and off-the-shelf system from a leading provider, but those are not customized to the individual company’s needs and come with a perpetual subscription cost.

In contrast, company can develop its own CRM system perfectly suited to its needs to track, analyze and contact potential customers. The managed service provider could build-out the system over a few months or year with a one time cost rather than an ongoing subscription into eternity. In addition, the company would have complete control over the data. If they ever want to migrate it to another system or share it, they will have the flexibility to do so.

An MSP can Help you in IT Related Decisions

Finally, an MSP can be used as a stand-in for a CIO. They can help make the purchasing decisions and technology adoption decisions when a qualified or less costly person is not able to. The MSP can get up and running quickly to help implement project, make IT purchasing decisions or decide which technology is most suited for the firm’s needs. Of course, the CEO and COO will still have tight oversight of the virtual CIO function and have the ultimate power of the purse strings.

Conclusion

GeekTek It Services is a leading managed service provider an IT outsourcing company. The firm has helped many small and medium businesses with their IT projects, server support and other functions. It acts as a full-fledged IT department to help clients save time and money with an extremely high-touch service model. For more information, please contact us.

What Makes for Good IT Support in Los Angeles? Using a Managed Service Provider

May 3, 2016 by eric

Your business has perhaps been seeking top-tier IT support in Los Angeles for a long time, yet keep running into problems. Getting tech support when you need it is essential in today’s business climate to prevent dreaded downtime. With mobile devices added to the mix, chaos could erupt when you and your team need immediate help, yet can’t immediately get it.

While most IT services provide some level of support, not all of them give it to you around the clock. Since you likely have a few employees who work during off-hours, on weekends, and maybe even holidays, what happens when a technical issue arises?

When you can’t get help, it only leads to other alternatives like break-fix services that charge you a fortune by the hour. If you have an in-house IT team on the payroll, it’s frequently impossible to communicate with them when off their schedule.

So where do you turn? You can find good IT support through a managed service provider. At GeekTek IT Services, we want to show you what makes good IT support today to deal with the unexpected.

Also Read: Different Levels of IT Support in Los Angeles

What Makes Good IT Support in Los Angeles

Being Able to Accurately Evaluate a Problem

How many times have you had to call IT support in the past and had a technician who couldn’t effectively diagnose your problem? While you should always do the best you can in describing an IT issue, a good IT support team knows how to decipher layman’s language.

We know not everyone describes IT problems using technical jargon, especially non-IT office employees. An effective technician easily diagnoses what’s wrong through simpler terms rather than adhering to overly technical definitions.

Even better is when the technician describes solutions to the caller in a way that’s easy to understand.

Guiding Users to Self-Service Solutions

While you always want IT support when you need it, it’s good to have pointers on solving a problem on your own. Quality managed service providers give you self-service options that help you take care of a problem without involving direct technical response.

The support crew might do this to save time for both them and you. Sending a technician to your office to take care of a problem could ultimately take more time than you solving it through a self-step process.

Even so, when something complex arises, a good managed service provider takes care of it one way or the other. Since managed services frequently operate remotely, many problems get fixed this way rather than sending a technician in person.

best-it-support-in-los-angeles-area — Best IT Support In Los Angeles Area

Follow-Up Service

You’ll find many who say follow-up service in your IT support is just as important as the initial service. No doubt you’ve experienced some IT services that left you hanging after a solution they gave didn’t work. The best IT support always follows up with you on a particular solution they gave you earlier.

If you’re still having technical problems, no support line should leave you waiting just to get the follow-up service you need.

Also Read: Los Angeles IT Support for Better Data Integration

Responding to Requests Universally

As mentioned above, you may have a BYOD policy in place where numerous employees work in the field with mobile devices. Having managed services creates a universality in support communication through phone or live chats. It means easy contact through any department in your company, or easy support service on a smartphone.

Anywhere you can find an Internet connection, IT support is there. The best providers are there for you, despite being on a Sunday in the middle of the night during a holiday.

Through GeekTek IT, we offer the best IT support here in the Los Angeles area.

Contact us to learn more about our managed services features and how comprehensive it works to keep your business running optimally.

IT Consulting for Challenges Outside IT Services: From Compliance to Refreshed Infrastructure

April 23, 2016 by eric

If you’ve already realized the value behind IT consulting, you’ve perhaps limited yourself to thinking only general IT services are possible. Because IT consultants have a huge breadth of knowledge working with companies around the world, they don’t limit themselves to just IT issues. They know IT frequently means connecting to many related problems that need guidance or fixing.

Some of these things still fall within technical lines, though not always. To show how far IT reaches, software migrations, network architecture, and government compliance connect to IT management.

Here at GeekTek IT Solutions, we look at IT consulting at a comprehensive level to cover many bases. Our IT consultants work with many companies throughout the Los Angeles area and understand the unique problems businesses have.

Let’s look at what an IT consultant can do for you beyond just the usual subjects like security and monitoring.

IT Consulting for Challenges Outside IT Services

Keeping Yourself Compliant

No matter what industry you’re in, staying on top of government regulations is always necessary. Especially when you’re in the financial industry, staying compliant is overwhelming, and missing just one item could end up costing you in expensive fines.

With good IT consultation, you’ll have a dedicated team making sure you get the proper audit responses on a technical level. This means making sure private data has proper security in place so it doesn’t become compromised.

You’ll also have ways to access documents through the cloud so you can check for errors and do file-sharing while on the go.

Also Read: Common Mistakes When Hiring IT Consulting Company

Virtual Servers

Rather than playing risk with the server you already use, why not do virtualization? This helps you divide your server into multiple and isolated virtual environments. As a result, you can move to new hardware without having to change your software. This helps you have a backup if a server goes down during a disaster.

At the same time, your ROI is more significant when you don’t have to deal with new hardware setups. Without a consultant, you may not understand this and end up investing in technologies you may not even need.

Also Read: 5 Ways To Prepare For A New IT Consulting Service

Refreshing Your Aging Network

Network architecture is important, and so is keeping it refreshed so you continue being competitive. However, your IT infrastructure can start aging quickly if you haven’t done any updating for a while. Through a consultant team, you’ll get reviews of your network to see what needs upgrading with new tools.

When you need a complete network replacement, your consultant team guides you to the right technology that isn’t extraneous. Your technicians aren’t there to just sell you what’s popular. They’re available to give you what you really need based on an accurate audit.

Also Read: Top Skills To Look For In An IT Consulting Company

Moving Your Server to the Cloud

While virtualization can help your servers, consolidation and moving to the cloud gives you more efficiency and an upgrade. Moving your server to the cloud is a smart decision to eliminate more risk while giving you more universal accessibility if you travel often.

Costs reduce as well since maintaining your on-site server can bring financial burdens when something inevitably goes wrong.

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Migration of Software

If you’ve considered using Office 365 or Google Apps to enhance your business operations, migrating to these can become confusing without expert technical help. Quality IT consultants help you migrate to both without having to endure downtime.

Office 365 lets you move Office into the cloud to expand your horizons and enjoy more features. Google Apps gives you a complete suite of Google’s best tools like Gmail, Google Docs, and Google Drive. While the comparisons between Office 365 and Google are apples and oranges, we’ll help you make a good decision based on your business structure.

IT Support Options in Los Angeles

April 16, 2016 by eric

Professional IT support offers many options to businesses in the Los Angeles area. These options range from remote support for office employees to full management of company IT systems, so it’s easy for customers to get the exact level of IT service they need to keep their operations running efficiently.

Remote Tech Support

This option allows a support customer and its employees to call in for help. Much of this type of support involves telling customers how to operate software and fix bugs from their side. Some simple troubleshooting may be included as well. At many companies, this will take care of most of the questions that would otherwise bog down an IT department.

On Site Support

When calling in just isn’t enough, take things to the next level by signing up for managed on-site IT and tech support. On-site personnel can do things that can’t be done over the phone, such as installing new software, personally fixing hardware issues, and directly showing people how to do things. By outsourcing IT work, your company is freed from having to vet and hire individual employees. You also don’t have to worry about providing health insurance, worker’s compensation, or other perks that in-house employees would require. Instead, the company you hire takes care of those things, while you enjoy the benefits of having an IT staff.

IT Consulting

Sometimes, the problem isn’t running the computers and software, but knowing which computers and software you should have. Set up a consultation with us to get our recommendations for upgrades, new systems, and more. We can develop a custom solution that meets all of your IT needs.

Outsourced CIO Services

This is the best option for a company that wants to outsource every part of its IT operations. It combines consulting services with ongoing support. Once everything is set up and the support is in place, the customer doesn’t have to worry about a thing. Everything seemingly runs almost on its own and the IT service provider makes sure that it stays that way.

Questions About IT Services

Many people have questions and concerns about the prospect of outsourcing IT work. One of the most common is about the availability of the support staff. We are happy to say that our IT support people are available 24/7 whether you use our remote support services or have us set up an office at your location. You’ll never have to fear getting a message that says to call back “during business hours” because we know that when it comes to IT, every hour is a business hour.

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Another concern that people often have is expense. Simply put, outsourcing IT is cheaper than hiring individual employees directly. By outsourcing, you eliminate the need to pay for vacations, bonuses, and the various forms of insurance and taxes that go with direct hiring. You also don’t have to pay the large premium required to get someone to be willing to be on call.

Security is another thing many people have questions about. By hiring a reputable IT company, you can relax knowing that your sensitive information won’t be misused. You’ll also be safer against outside hackers thanks to the security expertise of the outsourced experts. This is far better than setting up a system yourself and hoping nothing was missed, and far better than drafting an employee from an unrelated department to do the work.

With all of these benefits, there’s no reason not to outsource IT support to a Los Angeles company. To learn more about what we can do for you, just contact us here at GeekTek IT Services. We’ll be happy to discuss your needs and provide the perfect tech support and IT services package.