As technology becomes more advanced and businesses become reliant on their tech every day, more companies are turning to managed IT support to help them keep running as smoothly as possible.
There are a variety of different solutions when it comes to managed IT support services, the two most common are the break/fix model and proactive IT support services.
When something breaks in a business it can cause downtime and can cost a business thousands if not millions, because of this most businesses are turning to the proactive IT support model.
What is proactive IT support?
So what is proactive IT support, in a proactive IT support model your IT support team will monitor your system and try to prevent any problems from occurring in the first place. For this to happen you will need to give your IT support team access to your network so that they can find and resolve any issues before they happen.
Monitoring is only the first step of a proactive IT support company though as a good support company will look at your infrastructure and your software and recommend changes so your system is compatible, secure and efficient. They will also make sure that your staff know how to use your system and as a result will make your team more productive.
Proactive IT support can be more expensive initially as you have experts constantly monitoring your system waiting to fix potential problems. With the break-fix model which we will cover below, there is no active monitoring and as a result, it is cheaper. That is until there is a problem and your team can no longer work. This can then cost much more than paying for proactive IT support.
What is reactive IT support?
Reactive IT support as the name suggests is when your IT support team waits for a problem to occur and then fixes it. This was the traditional model of IT support for many years, but as technology got more advanced more people have been switching over to a proactive model.
Reactive IT support can be cheaper, to begin with, and you only get in touch with your IT support team when a problem occurs with your computer system.
Reactive IT support will cause downtime within your business and will cause productivity issues depending on the severity of the problem, because of this many businesses prefer a proactive IT support contract but it all depends on your situation.
Reactive IT support isn’t a bad way of providing support either as some IT support companies will handle the problems very quickly and efficiently so there is little downtime. If you do go down the route of choosing a reactive IT support contract then just make sure to hire a company that can provide quick and efficient support.
It’s also important to know that if you do want to build an IT strategy to help with your business goals then a reactive IT support plan can’t be used as there is no proactive management of your infrastructure or digital assets.
In our opinion, you may want to choose a reactive/break-fix model if your budget is smaller. With that said advancements in cloud computing have meant that proactive IT support is now much cheaper than it used to be.
Conclusion
Choosing between proactive and reactive IT support is going to be a personal decision based on your business needs. Reactive IT support can be cheaper initially but can cost you more if your IT support team can’t handle and fix your problems efficiently.
Proactive IT support is more expensive but can cut down on downtime and can make your business more productive. The choice between the two can be difficult so before taking out an IT support contract you should take into consideration the cost of the service compared to what the cost of the downtime could mean for your business.
At Firewall Technical we can provide you with both proactive and reactive IT services and we have helped many businesses in the Ottawa region with services from network installation to data back up and recovery.
If you would like to see how IT services can help your business, please get in touch and one of our experts will discuss your current situation and if we can help then provide you with potential solutions.