The team at claireLOGIC has been hard at work onboarding a new client the past few weeks. We were delighted when change enablement experts Epion Consulting recognised that taking us on as their strategic partner for IT while they continue to grow is a smart way to support their future.
Epion’s directors, Nick Smith and Ruth Tank, work with organisations to help them drive effective change and help the people in those organisations to understand, embrace and embed it into their everyday.
Epion chose claireLOGIC as their managed IT services provider, so that they could fully outsource their IT into the hands of professionals.
They and their team of consultants work at home and directly with clients. The whole team needs to know their IT will always be available and operational.
They don’t have IT expertise in house – but now they have claireLOGIC’s expert IT thinkers and engineers working on their behalf, they are unlikely to need to hire any.
Nick explains the motivation very clearly: “As we experience rapid growth it’s really important our people are able to focus on clients not spending time fixing IT problems. We need, too, to make sure our IT environment is secure, cost-effective, flexible, and scalable.”
“We’re really pleased to be going with claireLOGIC – they listen to us really well and bring in-depth expertise, flexibility and really strong customer service,” he concluded.
In choosing to partner with us, Epion is thinking about their future, and they will gain the benefits of doing so.
There are many to choose from.
With expert help, SMEs can gain a fully cloud based infrastructure which is perfectly optimised for today’s needs. However, the sheer flexibility of cloud means that their IT infrastructure can expand, evolve and be reshaped as the business changes.
One of the most significant benefits of managed IT services for SMEs is to help them build a truly scalable infrastructure from the start, to reduce the chance of significant and expensive changes being required later on.
Full cloud infrastructure keeps costs contained. It is more economical because it avoids many of the traditional large capital expenditure outlays of on-premises IT, like server and network hardware. It also makes operational expenditure more predictable as the unit cost of adding users will be stable, and the cost of their specific software licensing needs easy to calculate.
One of the benefits of managed IT services partnership is that cost efficiencies emerge through established turnkey processes to add new users, set them up and equip them with the devices and connectivity they need to become effective, fast. Whether you have 50, 100 or 250 users on the system doesn’t matter. No matter how many users may need to be added – or removed – in future, your IT partner can respond easily.
The almost infinite scalability of a cloud-based infrastructure means that not only can teams expand, but so can data storage. As operational momentum grows, more customer accounts are managed, or the number of product SKUs you’re managing or selling multiplies, file storage can easily expand. New solutions for managing customer information, finances and other functions can be integrated smoothly at the right time.
Navigating the many aspects of cyber security is incredibly hard for SMEs without IT security expertise. Building effective cyber security for a modern cloud based system is another of the benefits of a managed IT services partnership. Although, it is important to understand that not all providers include cyber security as standard in their managed IT services package, as we do at claireLOGIC.
SME businesses today need an array of protections, including multilayered email security, Multifactor Authentication and password management systems. They must protect data, with secure cloud data storage, and have ongoing threat monitoring. Your partner will oversee security updates for software, as well as ongoing updates and upgrades so you never leave your SME vulnerable to an avoidable risk.
Your managed IT provider can help an SME stay compliant in many ways, whether with the specific regulatory requirements of a particular sector, or with universal business requirements such as compliance with GDPR regulation.
They can also help you ensure you have appropriate IT policies in place, to provide guidance for employees today – and evolve those policies as you evolve and grow. IT policies help establish how technology is and should be used, to protect your business, your systems, and your staff themselves.
The benefits of managed IT services for SMEs are manyfold – not just in future-proofing, cost efficiency and cyber security.
Not least, it helps ensure that the people who run and work in your business can focus on their own core business activities and add value for their customers, rather than trying to manage their IT without help, or expensive external hires.
Perhaps above all, it answers one very important question for SME leaders: Where is your IT taking your business?
Working with claireLOGIC can also help create a strategic IT roadmap for your future that complements business growth plans. Our IT Strategic Review helps companies at any stage of their growth to ensure they know and manage their risks, optimise their systems, and protect their future with IT.
